Blue Bird opens electric school bus factory to build 5,000 buses per year
Blue Bird has opened a new “Electric Vehicle Build-Up Center” on the grounds of its main manufacturing plant in Fort Valley, Georgia. The 40,000 square foot facility will help the company reach production of 5,000 electric school buses per year.
Blue Bird is headquartered in Georgia and has built school buses there for 91 years.
The new facility will assemble electric versions of Blue Bird’s “Vision” and “All American” model buses, carrying 77 and 84 passengers respectively. The Vision is a classic “Type C” bus, while the All American is a “Type D” bus with a flat front end. Both have a 155kWh battery and roughly 120 miles of range.
Blue Bird celebrated its grand opening with a short promotional video on its YouTube channel:
The company currently builds 4 electric school buses per day, but wants to increase that number to 20 per day. Electric buses currently make up 6% of Blue Bird’s total volume, and about 1,000 electric Blue Bird buses are in operation today.
But the company expects those numbers to go up fast, especially due to billions of dollars in incentives from the infrastructure plan passed under President Biden. These incentives make electric school buses a no-brainer (to the point they’re nearly free for some districts).
And new EPA emissions rules mean that about a third of school bus sales will be electric by 2027, and half by 2032.
As a result of these policies, Blue Bird thinks it will sell thousands of additional EV school buses, to the tune of about $1 billion in orders over the course of the next five years.
Georgia, the state where Blue Bird is headquartered, has seen a lot of manufacturing announcements as a result of new federal policies on electric vehicles. Several companies are opening new car and battery manufacturing facilities in the state, with Georgia becoming an important part of a new “battery belt” in the region, despite the state’s oft-indifference to necessary climate action.
This influx of green jobs stands to benefit Georgia and neighboring states (well, most of them anyway), as the Biden Administration attempts to onshore EV manufacturing with new policies in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act. Manufacturing jobs are generally thought of as being particularly beneficial to an economy, and Blue Bird says that this facility will help it sustain 2,000 good paying jobs. Its workers voted to unionize just last week, in hopes to ensure that they get a fair share of the benefits of this growth in green jobs.
School buses are a particularly ripe area for electrification, as school bus duty cycles are amenable to electric powertrains. School buses drive short fixed routes on most days, have long periods of time in the middle of the day or overnight that they are parked and able to charge (or discharge to help the grid), and most importantly of all they don’t spew disgusting black soot into the lungs of their child occupants. As a result, studies have shown that electric school buses reduce sick days, improving student health and attendance.
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Environment
Trump approves U.S. Steel merger with Japan’s Nippon after companies sign national security agreement
European EV charging provider Allego has launched what is says is Europe’s first rollout of the “world’s safest and most secure” Plug & Charge technology.
The new tech is based on the open industry standard OCPP 2.0.1 and promises to make EV charging as easy as, well, plugging in your car. Forget apps, cards, and complicated sign-ins. If your EV is compatible, all you have to do is pull up and plug in.
Jean Gadrat, Allego’s CMO, said, “By removing digital friction points, apps, and cards, we give drivers the confidence to travel further and charge more conveniently. Whether in the city, on the highway, or abroad, Plug & Charge delivers the same secure, one-step charging experience.”
Here’s how Allego’s Plug & Charge works
Plug & Charge is an ISO 15118-based authentication and payment method built by Allego on OCPP 2.0.1, standardizing communication between OCPP-compliant chargers and networks.
Once your car is enabled for Plug & Charge, the process is completely hands-off. You plug in, and your EV and the charger swap secure digital certificates to authenticate your account. There’s no need to tap an RFID card, open an app, or even press a button.
Allego’s system supports Mutual TLS encryption and certificate-based authentication, so only authorized vehicles can charge. That means no billing mistakes or fraudulent access, which has been a big concern with some older public charging setups.
Available across Europe now
Allego’s Plug & Charge functionality is at more than 5,000 fast and ultra-fast chargers across Europe, and it also works across partner networks, deploying a truly cross-network Plug & Charge experience.
It’s a future-ready platform, too. Thanks to OCPP 2.0.1, the protocol supports remote firmware updates, advanced security, and new features as they become available. So your charger can grow along with your EV.
“As new vehicle models and charging technologies emerge, OCPP 2.0.1 ensures your car always ‘speaks the same language’ as the charger,” said Manuel Trotta, Allego’s head of mobility solutions.
Allego partnered with Alpitronic, Hubject, and Ford to bring its cross-network Plug & Charge to life.
Read more: Waffle House is getting DC fast chargers – and it’s a genius move
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Environment
The Kia PV5 is a real-life Transformer: Here’s our first look at it as an electric truck
Kia is looking to shake things up with its new custom-tailored Platform Beyond Vehicles (PBVs). The PV5, Kia’s first electric van based on the platform, is already showing how versatile it is. After the PV5 was spotted for the first time with an open bed, Kia looks about ready to drop an electric truck variant.
Is Kia launching an electric truck PV5 variant?
At the 2024 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Kia revealed its PBV strategy for the first time. The vehicles are designed as “total mobility solutions” that combine fit-for-purpose EVs with Hyundai’s latest software and tech.
Kia’s PBVs are based on Hyundai’s new ultra-flexible E-GMP.S EV platform, which can be custom-tailored for different uses. The first EV based on the platform, the PV5, launched earlier this year in the UK in two variations, Cargo and Passenger.
The Passenger model is fairly self-explanatory as a personal, everyday van, while the Cargo version is designed for commercial use.
Kia said more variants were on the way, including a refrigerated truck, chassis cab, open-bed, luxury “Prime” passenger, and sliding truck models.
The open-bed variant was recently captured driving in Korea, giving us our first look at the Kia PV5 as an electric truck.
Although brief, the video from HealerTV, taken as the vehicle was driving by, reveals a few new details. It’s our closest look at the open-bed variant so far.
Like other PV5 variants, it appears to be the same up front. In fact, it’s almost identical to the first teaser Kia showed.
It’s hard to tell from a video, but the reporter mentioned the electric truck “seemed like it was just the right size.” Since the PV5 Passenger is 4,695 mm in length, 1,895 mm in width, and 1,899 mm in height, we can expect it to be about the same size. To give you a better idea, it’s slightly smaller than the Volkswagen ID.Buzz SWB.
More variants on the way
The electric truck, or open-bed variant, comes after we saw the PV5 “Conversion,” which will feature new models, including a light camper and a camper van.
We got a preview of the camper van after Kia revealed two new “Spielraum” PV5 concepts, including one with a refrigerator, microwave oven, and even a wine cellar. And then we got a look at the PV5 “WKNDR,” an “adventure-ready” electric van concept. Kia’s electric van even has a wheelchair-friendly version, the PV5 WAV.
What’s next? Kia plans to launch a full range of electric vans. Next up will be the larger PV7 in 2027, followed by the PV9 in 2029. There’s also a smaller PV1, expected to arrive in late 2026 or early 2027.
In the future, Kia plans ot launch a Robotaxi model through a collaboration with Motional. All PBV models will be built at Kia’s Hwaseong EVO plant in South Korea. The facility can build up to 150,000 vehicles annually.
Kia said its goal is to “design PBVs that are simple and intuitive to operate and engage with, regardless of where, when or how they are used.” In other words, Kia wants to make your life easier, “Whether the purpose of the vehicle is to transport people, move goods, or meet logistics or personal mobility needs.”
In the UK, the PV5 Passenger and Cargo models start at £32,995 ($44,000) and £27,645 ($37,000), respectively.
It’s available with two battery pack options: 51.5 kWh or 71.2 kWh, offering WLTP ranges of 179 miles and 249 miles, respectively. The Cargo version gets slightly more range with 181 miles or 247 miles, respectively.
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