Zeroing In On Electric School Buses - May 2023 - A CALSTART Report
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Executive Summary

This report aims to provide an inventory of the number of electric school buses (ESBs) currently adopted within the United States. In 2021, the federal government allocated $5 billion over the next five years to replace existing school buses with zero-emission and lowemission models. This funding marks the largest federal investment for electric school buses in history and has become a catalyst for other incentive programs across the country. The Zeroing in on Electric School Buses report analyzes adoption and tracks the ESB industry's growth. The report highlights trends, such as emerging financing models, funding and policy, and barriers to adoption such as cost and education. It also tracks the impacts of these trends and the distribution of funding in the market for ESBs to inform the adoption of electric school buses across the United States.

CALSTART tracks incentive funding and award reports as well as new sources and industry press releases to collect electric school bus adoption statistics within the United States. This report covers adoption statistics through December 2022 apart from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 2022 Clean School Bus Rebate program awards. At the time of writing this report, the Clean School Bus Rebate program awardees were not yet finalized. These numbers will not be represented in this edition as the total number of awarded ESBs is still fluctuating.

The report reveals that 3,043 electric school buses have been awarded, ordered, delivered, or deployed in the U.S. California continues to lead with the most electric school buses adopted, making up 56 percent of the total market share (Figure 1). The report also highlights the significant growth of electric school buses adopted in Illinois, New Jersey, North Carolina, Connecticut, and New York. However, despite the spike in federal and state funding programs over the past year, limited technical and financial resources available to school districts still pose challenges to ESB adoption.

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