Yellow school bus goes green
Vancouver-based company leading the charge into all-electric vehicles
There’s an elegant coming-full-circle aspect to Fraser Atkinson’s role as chairman of GreenPower Motor Company.
“My grandfather was a conductor for B.C. Electric running the overhead cable electric trolleys,” Atkinson says as we stand beside his Vancouver-based company’s latest creation, an all-electric school bus.
Dubbed the Synapse 72 — for its seating capacity of 72 — it is the world’s first purpose-built all-electric school bus. And it’s creating quite the buzz. Atkinson reports school boards in Southern California have raised their hands for 11 buses, and he’s been doing the rounds in B.C. and Ontario to drum up interest and eventual business.
“Our strategy is to show people what is possible, and not just with school buses,” he explains. “But the school bus is kind of the thin edge of the wedge.”
The rest of that wedge includes all manner of all-electric people haulers, including airport shuttles, transit buses, tourism-geared coaches and even double-deckers. On that latter note, a GreenPower double-decker was used all summer in a pilot project with Victoria-based sightseeing tour operator CVS Tours.
“The feedback on the bus itself has been fantastic,” he says of the double-decker test run. “We have had some charging issues, but that’s why we do a pilot.”
Atkinson recently met with the City of Vancouver Sustainable Energy Group, a delegation that included councillor Adrian Carr, and took them for a ride in the Synapse 72.
That bus features nine battery packs for a total of 160 kWh, which translates to a full-charge range in the 170-kilometre neighbourhood.
“That’s complete overkill for a school bus that does a two-hour route in the morning and a two-hour route in the afternoon,” notes Atkinson, adding that’s why the bus can be configured with a battery system ranging from 100 to 200 kWh, translating to a range of 120 to 225 kilometres.
What GreenPower has discovered in places like Ontario is that the larger school bus operators often put their busses on double duty for charter and shuttles (for sport teams, field trips etc.).
That flexibility in the number of battery packs allows customers to get the range that best suits their needs.
This particular bus is an 11-metre model. The company also builds a 9-metre school bus and a shuttle bus, where the body is different but the chassis is the same and seating can be tailored for use, including a 48-seat configuration with bucket seats.
Components come from all over the world, with the final assembly at a Southern California facility. The battery cells come from the same manufacturer that power BMW’s i-cars.
Like all-electric passenger vehicles, the big selling point of the buses is operating cost savings. According to GreenPower, the typical diesel school bus gets around 59 litres/100km while their comparable EV bus gets 10.7 L/100km. Likewise, and as with passenger EVs, maintenance costs are less than traditional gas-powered buses.
And as with EV passenger cars, in some North American jurisdictions government rebates are available. Atkinson cites that his company’s US$400,000 shuttle bus qualifies for some $120,000 in rebates in California. And the monthly operating cost of about $4,000 for the EV shuttle compares to $8,000 for a comparable diesel shuttle, he adds.
It seems inevitable, and fiscally sensible, that GreenPower school buses will soon be transporting that most precious cargo to and from classes, sporting events and performances.
Which means, I suppose, a rewriting of that classic school bus song, The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round, as the line, ‘The motor on the bus goes zoom, zoom, zoom’ will require amending.