Zion becomes first national park with an all-electric shuttle bus service
Zion National Park’s shuttle fleet has become one of the first bus fleets in the US to go all electric, and the first at a National Park.
Zion National Park in Southern Utah is renowned for its colorful canyons and arches, and is one of the “mighty five” national parks in the region showing off Utah’s natural beauty.
The park, which is largely situated around a narrow canyon, started getting more and more visitors in the 1990s, leading to traffic issues. This led the park to close off most park roads to private traffic, and institute a shuttle system to bring visitors through the canyon and back and forth from the town of Springdale just outside the park.
Those buses went into service in 2000, and helped to revitalize the park by reducing noise and pollution from traffic, which are always a scourge in beautiful natural areas.
“The remarks we got from visitors in the very first summer were fantastic. They said, ‘You have given us back the canyon.’ They said, ‘We can hear the birds sing and the air is fresh.’ No longer were the traffic jams fouling the air, impacting the soundscape, and diminishing the visitor experience.”
Jeff Bradybaugh, Zion National Park Superintendent
However, those buses ran on propane, so they were still noisy and contribute to the degradation of natural environments due to their use of fossil fuels.
Now, Zion has upgraded its entire fleet to all-electric buses, rather than the previous propane buses, becoming the first fleet at any National Park to do so.
The fleet includes 30 all-electric buses to replace the 39 previous propane buses. The new buses are more spacious, quieter, and include air conditioning and better disability accommodations, which the previous buses did not have.
Best of all, they’re also more efficient, and therefore contribute less to the climate change that has made Zion’s summer days hotter and hotter (as humans apparently refuse to stop poisoning the only home we have).
The fleet’s full conversion was announced this week, but the buses have already been operating and shuttling visitors. Over Labor Day weekend, they shuttled 97,000 riders through the park – saving a huge amount of car trips, exhaust, and noise that would have otherwise been required. Zion says each shuttle replaces 29 cars on its roads.
The buses were largely funded by the US Department of Transportation through a grant program for nationally significant federal lands.
While this is the first National Park bus fleet to go all-electric, the National Park Service is working to transition other large bus fleets, like those at Grand Canyon, Acadia, Yosemite, Bryce Canyon, and Harpers Ferry, to all-electric buses. This is all part of the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to shift the entire federal fleet to electric vehicles.
And Zion hopes that it can serve as a role model for other bus fleets, whether federal or otherwise, and show how successful an all-electric bus fleet can be at reducing both air and noise pollution. “This is the state-of-the-art electric bus fleet in the country. It is going to set a standard for other national parks” said Robin Carnahan, administrator of the General Services Administration.
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The spiritual successor to the beloved Chevy Geo Tracker, production of the new-for-2026 electric Spark EUV has officially begun in Brazil with more than 200 miles of range.
That’s right, kids. To know the Chevy Tracker is to love the Chevy Tracker. The tiny, top-heavy Suzuki-based SUV combined bold colors, fun styling, (relatively) good fuel economy, and real off-road chops (especially in ZR2 trim) with an affordable price tag to make the Tracker an early favorite among the serious rock-crawling crowds.
Like, really
While it’s still too early to tell whether or not the all-new Chevy Spark EUV will come even close to that little proto-SUV, it seems we won’t have to wait much longer to find out – GM Authority reports that production of the 2026 Chevy Spark EUV has officially begun at Comexport’s Planta Automotiva do Ceará (PACE) plant, in the state of Ceará, Brazil.
GM Brazil invested the equivalent of $73 million to get the PACE factory ready to assemble GM’s modern, zero-emissions Chevy crossover for the South American and Middle Eastern markets – an investment big enough to earn a visit from Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was on-hand for the December 3rd kickoff event.
“It’s not a car factory,” said Comexport Vice President and PACE shareholder, Rodrigo Teixeir. “(The) goal is to develop technology there, not simply assemble a vehicle.”
Production of the new Spark EUV began last week, with production of the equally new Chevy Captiva EV set to begin as early as Q1 of 2026.
2026 Chevy Spark EUV
The Made in Brazil Chevrolet Spark EUV is heavily based on the Chinese Baojun, and is powered by that vehicle’s single 75 kW (101 hp), 180 Nm (130 lb-ft) motor driving the front wheels. Power comes from the Baojun’s 42 kWh LFP battery that, with regenerative braking, is good for up to 360 km (220 miles) on the NEDC driving cycle.
Weirdly, the new Spark is also equipped with a 10.1″ infotainment screen and 8.8″ digital instrument cluster (above) that supports both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto standard – technology that GM claims lead to “unsafe” driver behaviors in North America.
Let us know what you think of the little electric SUV, and whether or not you think it would be a hit in the US (it would) in the comments.
SOURCE: GM Authority; images by GM, Harry Situations.
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A federal judge in Massachusetts today ruled that the Trump administration’s ban on new offshore wind projects in federal waters is illegal.
Judge Patti B. Saris of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts wrote that Trump’s executive order banning leasing of federal lands and waters for new wind farms is “arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law.”
Attorneys general from 17 states and Washington, DC, filed a lawsuit in May against the memorandum halting federal approvals of wind energy development, which was supported by industry and public interest groups.
The Attorneys general claimed that the halt “harms the States’ efforts to secure reliable, diversified, and affordable sources of energy to meet the ever-increasing demand for electricity; their billions of dollars in investments in supply chains, workforce development, and wind-industry-related infrastructure, including transmission upgrades; and their statutory- and policy-based efforts to protect public health and welfare from harmful air pollutants like nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, as well as greenhouse-gas emissions.”
Because of Trump’s ban, at least seven offshore wind farms in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic have been paused, as well as several others at earlier stages of development. Offshore wind has been a crucial part of the Northeastern states’ plans to transition to renewables, due to their geography and the plentiful wind in the winter. The region also heavily relies on natural gas, which is subject to price fluctuations.
Ted Kelly, director and lead counsel, US Clean Energy at Environmental Defense Fund, said, “We should not be kneecapping America’s largest source of renewable power, especially when we need more cheap, homegrown electricity. Striking down this unlawful ban gives relief to the communities and workers who need affordable power, local investment and jobs from wind projects that have been stuck in limbo.”
As a result of the Trump administration’s “arbitrary” policies, BloombergNEF reduced its forecast of new offshore wind power coming online by 2035 by 56%. And while the ruling is good news for the wind industry, it doesn’t mean the federal government is required to approve projects. And let’s face it: Foreign renewable companies aren’t exactly going to come running back to the US to do business. (Just today, for example, Denmark’s Eurowind Energy announced it’s shutting its US office, citing “political uncertainty.”) But at least offshore wind is no longer banned.
Oceantic Network CEO Liz Burdock said, “We thank the Attorneys General and the Alliance for Clean Energy New York for taking this case forward to protect American business interests against the politicization of our energy sector.”
Read more: Trump just killed all offshore wind zones as US power needs surge
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