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DATA, STATISTICS AND TRENDS Electric School Bus Production Remains
Flat, Mirrors Overall Data Biggest gains made by Type A segment, according to survey of manufacturers
WRITTEN BY RYAN GRAY |
RYAN@STNONLINE.COM A
head of President Donald Trump returning to the Oval Office and his promise to “drill, baby, drill,” school districts nationwide indicated they weren’t completely sold
on electric school buses. That is one conclusion that could be made after school bus manufacturers reported only 26 more electric school buses were manufactured despite year three of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s $5 billion Clean School Bus Program and a 145-percent increase in electric manufacturing the previous year. It should be noted that school bus manufacturers
2023 Bus Table_P11.pdf 1 12/6/22 4:45 PM
have only so much current capacity at their factories for electric school buses despite recent new plants opening over the past year. However, one of those, Lion Electric’s plant in Joliet, Illinois, was closed at least temporarily at the end of 2024. At this report, it remained to be seen how long the struggling Canadian manufacturer would remain in business as it sought further extensions of credit lines as well as potential purchaser. Previously, school bus OEMs have commented that
they would each eventually need to achieve an annual output of at least 2,500 electric school buses, a figure widely considered to be necessary for for eventual market saturation. A bet made was that further EPA emissions regulations would phase out diesel. But the political winds can change fast. While it
remained to be seen what would happen to EPA’s Phase 3 GHG emissions regulations set to go into effect in 2027 under Trump, Daimler Truck North America in December announced a new $285 million capital investment into Detroit Diesel’s manufacturing campus in Michigan. Diesel, indeed, continued to reign supreme as the
fuel of choice, so shows the magazine’s annual survey of 10 school bus OEMs for the production cycle of Nov. 1, 2023, to Oct. 31, 2024, accounting for 22,889 school bus units manufactured. Gasoline came in second at 10,404 units. But 7,947 of those were Type A school buses with chassis provided by Ford or GM. Another 434 units not counted to that total were MFSABs. Overall, the OEMs reported that school bus
production decreased by over 2 percent during the
School Transportation News Annual School Bus Manufacturing Data
School Year 2023-2024
2022-2023 2020-2021 2020-2021
2018 2019 2019-2020
2017 2018
2016 2017 2015 2016 2014-2015
MFSAB 2,330 2,246 1,606 1,448
1,761 2,231 1,870
2,000 (est.) 1,061 (est.) 1,585 (est.)
Type A-1 3,661 3,519
4,010 2,827
1,948 2,589 3,361
2,338
2,978 2,084
Type A-2 4,887 3,310 2,081 2,932
6,671 6,641 4,404
7,356
6,424 6,132
Total Type A 8,538 6,829 6,091 5,759
9,230 7,765
8,719 9,694
9,402 8,216
Type C 26,083 29,098 24,117 23,101
31,554 31,834 25,965
32,291 29,757 28,640 Type D 3,004 2,601 2,665 2,616
4,508 3,790 2,948
4,145 4,143 4,344
Totals* 37,624 38,528 32,873 31,476
44,634 44,781 36,678
46,130
43,302 41,200
*Total count does not include MFSAB, AAV or “white” buses that are typically used for commercial applications. Source: School Transportation News
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