First electric school bus rolls into Monterey County

Students at the Santa Rita Union School District in Salinas can breathe cleaner air now thanks to the new electric school bus, the eLion.

The Santa Rita Union School District has purchased Monterey County's first fully-electric school bus through a grant, providing transportation for children with clean air and no harmful emissions.

Alan Romero, air quality planner with the Monterey Bay Air Resources District, said it is important to have electric school buses for health betterment because diesel exhaust is a toxic air contaminant, a carcinogen, and notes it enters the body easily.

“Respiratory illness in the state of California is pretty severe, especially in disadvantaged communities that are stuck in the middle of highway corridors when you have diesel traffic non-stop,” said Romero. “School buses are no different. The children who sit inside the diesel bus are breathing dirty air that is outside the bus.”

The grant funds to purchase the bus came from the Monterey Bay Air Resources District, the California Air Resources Board Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and the Bus Voucher Incentive Project, according to the press release by the Monterey Bay Air Resources District.

Romero said the idea was spurred by newly available funds that allowed the air district to enhance bus fleets for schools as long as they are fully electric.

“Once we got that going, we needed to find a school district who was willing to take that leap of faith,” said Romero.

More: NJROTC at Everett Alvarez High School to receive $35k in Navy funding

Shelly Morr, superintendent of the Santa Rita Union School District said getting this electric bus aligned with the direction the school district was already heading. Morr said the school had recently added solar panels and enough batteries that they will run on every building for seven hours a day while recharging themselves.

“We were already doing some environmental things anyway and this just dovetailed with it as well as looking at the next generation of science standards,” said Morr. “Our robotics, engineering labs, science garden, it just all came together at the same time. It made sense.”

The air district found Santa Rita suitable for the bus because it had a route that was less than 100 miles to prevent range anxiety and was a location that was suitable for electrical infrastructure to charge the bus, said Romero.

“I do a route too so my range is between 30 to 40 miles, so it works perfectly for this district,” said Victor Melgoza, supervisor of maintenance for the Santa Rita School District. “Any other district that has to travel more distances, it’s a little tougher.”

Romero said finding an electric school bus manufacturer took a couple of years but eventually partnered with the Canadian company The Lion Electric Co. to move the project forward.

The electric bus purchased for the district cost just over $450,000 and noted the Bus Voucher Incentive Project awarded Santa Rita $130,000 for the bus while the air district awarded roughly $300,000, said Romero.

“We’re really pleased with the partnerships of it,” said Morr. “We couldn’t have done it by ourselves, they couldn’t have done it by themselves. The more community organizations talk to each other and partner, the more things we can do for our kids.”

The district will save more than $10,000 each year in fuel and maintenance costs as a result of driving electric instead of fuel, according to the press release. Morr said the electric bus costs her $0.17 a mile, while the regular diesel buses cost $0.85 a mile.

Read: Pay, housing costs, stress of job leading Salinas teacher shortage

Romero said the next candidate in line is Gonzalez Unified School District and said the buses have already been ordered, with the plan being to have it ready in the next couple of months.

“It’s something new, something that as a community everybody has to be involved with and everybody has to be in the know-how with new technologies for a safer, cleaner environment,” said Melgoza.

Romero said the benefits to the environment through an electric bus are endless.

“The true path to zero-emission is electrification, and anything in between is a band-aid,” said Romero.