Electric school Bus: America's first electric school bus fleet, which will provide electricity to homes too!

Tucked away in an industrial corner of Oakland, between a 10-lane freeway and a freight terminal, sits California's latest renewable energy source. Here's a fleet of bright yellow electric school buses.

Tucked away in an industrial corner of Oakland, between a 10-lane freeway and a freight terminal, sits California's latest renewable energy source. Here's a fleet of bright yellow electric school buses. It is the first all-electric bus fleet serving a major US school district. Starting in August, these 74 vehicles will also supply 2.1 gigawatt-hours of electricity to the Bay Area power grid, enough energy to light 300 to 400 homes.

These buses are expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 25,000 tonnes annually. In a city where 72 percent of public school students come from low-income families, they are disproportionately affected by Oakland's busy port, truck traffic, and pollution from manufacturing units. Alameda County, where Oakland is located, has one of the worst air pollution areas in the country, according to an American lung Association report released this month.

The Oakland Unified school District's previous diesel bus fleet did not provide children with any respite from pollutants linked to lung diseases like asthma. "I would wipe my fingers along the inside of the bus at the end of the day and they would turn black from the diesel smoke," says Marjorie Urbina, who has been driving a school bus for 23 years. "If it's on the bus, it's in my lungs."

According to the World Resources Institute, most of the 480,000 school buses in the US run on diesel fuel. And of the 20 million children who commute every day, 60 percent are low-income students. Heavy-duty trucks, which include school buses, comprise just 6 percent of vehicles in the US. But road transport emits 59 percent of the pollution. "Electrification of electric school buses could play a significant role in making our air healthier for everyone, especially children," Harold Wimmer, chief executive officer of the American lung Association, said during a webinar on electric school buses on Wednesday. Is." Oakland's electric buses are provided by Zoom, a Silicon Valley startup that now manages the school district's fleet. Also in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Seattle, and other US cities. Zoom began adding electric buses to its fleet in 2022 and about 10 percent of the company's 3,000 buses are now zero-emission.

As Zoom is converting more of its fleet to battery power. Oakland offers lessons to other districts about how to ditch diesel and help pay for electrification by using buses to provide power to the grid.