Opinion: reaching pricing parity with diesel is just the first step, says GreenPower President

The public transportation market is largely serviced by legacy products that need to be electrified. Buses, trucks and taxis account for 10% of the vehicles on the road today but they result in 66% of the emissions. Clean air is taken for granted in many locations but in major cities in countries around the world it is a serious problem.

Five years ago, electric cars were a novelty and electric buses were a thing of the future. The rapid adoption of electric vehicles and the significant initiatives and incentives that exist are confirming the zero-emission future is now.

Over the last few years, electric bus technology has advanced rapidly and transit agencies are concluding that electric buses can meet their operational needs while reducing noise and pollution, energy use, NOx and greenhouse gas emissions. Experts had predicted that EVs would cost the same as their conventional fuel counterparts in 7 years; however, the price of the base model GreenPower EV550 double decker is not only on par with the Alexander Dennis Enviro 500, it seats about 15 more passengers and incurs less than half the cost to operate! With seating for 100 passengers on a bus that is 45 feet in length, there is more than double the seating capacity of a traditional 40 foot bus.

Overall, the EV550 offers the lowest acquisition and total cost of ownership per seat of any heavy-duty transit bus in North America, diesel or otherwise, and is a testament to our exceptional product development team.

The EV550 is available with two sizes of batteries: 400kWh and 500kWh which yield up to 180 miles or 240 miles on one charge, respectively.

The state of California is leading the way in clean air policy. The electrification of the automobile industry is a central part of the California Air Resource Board (CARB) mandate. CARB awarded $9.5 million to the City of Porterville to deploy 10 GreenPower EV350 transit buses and to install the charging infrastructure including 11 charging stations.

Most electric buses, including our EV350, 40 foot low floor transit bus, are still slightly more expensive up front than their internal combustion counterparts. But because they save so much on fuel and maintenance costs the total cost of ownership over their lifetime is low. GreenPower EV550 double decker.

Subsequently, we have entered into a sales agreement with Porterville Transit; and when deployed, this will be California’s first all-electric transit system. A truly ground-breaking development for the industry. California Climate Investments also offers electric HVIP buyer incentive programs. These incentives result in a compelling value proposition where buying GreenPower electric buses make it easy to go green. GreenPower’s EV350 electric transit bus and the new EV550 electric transit bus qualify for $95,000 vouchers under the program.

Another major development in 2016 was the inception of GreenPower’s high floor SynapseTM product line consisting of electric school buses and shuttle buses. Through our partnership with Adomani in California, Letters of Intent were received for 25 GreenPower school buses. We are excited to introduce this impressive new product line to the marketplace.

The high floor design of our school buses and shuttle buses results in increased safety and a far better ride. Again, we are delivering a cost effective innovative green solution to a marketplace that is outmoded and notorious for excessive emissions.

I am extremely excited by the prospects in front of us: our sales pipeline is robust, we are set to deploy additional transit buses into the market, we are ready to launch our SynapseTM product line; and, we will commence construction on our production facility in Porterville, California.

For more information visit GreenPower’s web site.

Forward-Looking Statements
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Disclosure: GreenPower is an annual sponsor of Cantech Letter.