STN Publisher Tony Corpin interviews Brandon Berish, manager of sales and strategic training for Micro Bird, at STN EXPO Reno. Watch this interview and others at
stnexpo.com/west. Photo courtesy of Vincent Rios Creative.
company said it is able to meet that demand despite economic and other challenges. The company now offers its LionA, though the bus is a mini-Type D. “We are seeing very healthy interest in the marketplace
for electric buses and that is not slowing down,” said spokesman Brian Alexander. “We are seeing orders in the hundreds and even thousands from repeat customers who are moving past small pilot programs to large fleet integrations. There is a lot of momentum.” Likewise for Quebec-based Micro Bird, which expects
to have “over 100 electric Type A units on the road short- ly” and has orders still pouring in, explained Chief Commercial Officer Normand Pâquet. “In large cities like Boston and Los Angeles, most of the time they prefer smaller buses because of the traffic and road conditions, the one-way streets, for exam- ple,” Pâquet noted. He added that the revamping of school schedules,
environmental goals, grants and the economic impacts of the pandemic have only increased interest in small buses and specifically electric ones. “The estimation is deliveries will double every year,” he
said. “It’s not the flavor of the day. Electric vehicles are here to stay.”
Meeting Supply Chain Challenges Electric bus suppliers agree that the supply chain has
affected their sector just like all others. “Anything that includes tech components, wheth-
er it’s chips, dashboards inside school buses, we are seeing those supply chain issues,” said Simon Lonsdale,
cofounder and head of sales and strategy for AMPLY Power, a charging-as-a-service provider to school dis- tricts. “On the charging side of electrification, it seems like particularly the European manufacturers of charging stations are being impacted by the supply chain. They get components from the Far East, put them together in Europe, and the spotty responses across European countries to COVID means that all in all they are the most impacted.” Castelaz said Motiv’s experience “hasn’t been as bad as
maybe some of the higher volume markets, because we had a lot of our parts in inventory. [Nonetheless], certain parts we’ve been having trouble getting—there’s the chip shortage, or resin for connectors.” Electric bus component and charging infrastructure
producers say they’ve focused on sourcing domestically to avoid the worst of the supply chain problems. Pâquet, meanwhile, said sourcing from a variety of
global companies has been an asset. He said Micro Bird has delayed some deliveries because of the shortage of Ford and General Motors chassis, but the fact that extra chassis were ordered early last year was helpful. And Mi- cro Bird’s recent acquisition of EV drivetrain integrator and supplier Ecotuned Technologies has also provided power train technologies and procurement stability. “We’re still working. We slowed down but never
stopped our production since March 2020,” Paquet said. “With the exception of longer delivery lead time, our customers and dealers know in terms of taking orders and manufacturing we are business as usual.” Flexibility in types of materials and components need-
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