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Blue Bird Celebrates Grand Opening of Electric Vehicle Build-Up Center

Blue Bird transformed a nearly 40,000-square-foot facility to meet demand for electric school buses.

Blue Bird celebrated the grand opening of its Electric Vehicle (EV) Build-up Center in Fort Valley, Georgia.
Blue Bird celebrated the grand opening of its Electric Vehicle (EV) Build-up Center in Fort Valley, Georgia.
Blue Bird

Blue Bird Corporation, a maker of electric and low-emission school buses, celebrated the grand opening of its Electric Vehicle (EV) Build-up Center on the grounds of the company’s main U.S. manufacturing plant in Fort Valley, Georgia.

Blue Bird transformed a nearly 40,000-square-foot facility to meet increasing demand for electric school buses. The opening comes as the company continues to expand its electric school bus production capacity from 4 to 20 vehicles a day.

U.S. and Canadian school districts are increasingly transitioning their bus fleets to electric, zero-emission vehicles to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions, improve student and community health and save on rising fuel costs.

“Based on the historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law alone we anticipate thousands of additional electric school bus orders valued at an estimated $1 billion over five years,” said Phil Horlock, president and CEO of Blue Bird Corporation. “Our new EV Build-up Center reflects Blue Bird’s steadfast commitment to school districts across the U.S. and Canada to meet increasing demand and deliver clean, safe, and reliable student transportation when they need it.”

Blue Bird’s EV Build-up Center is part of a multi-million dollar investment in the upgrade of Blue Bird’s Fort Valley manufacturing site. The new facility will feature a dedicated assembly line for electric school buses. Highly-trained technicians will install electric batteries and other components to turn the vehicles into emission-free electric school buses.

Blue Bird remains the proven clean transportation leader with nearly 1,000 electric-powered, zero-emission school buses in operation today. The company will assemble Vision and All American electric school buses at the EV Build-up Center. These zero-emission vehicles can carry between 77 and 84 students for up to 120 miles on a single charge.

Blue Bird’s EV Build-up Center includes InCharge Energy ICE-30 chargers and mobile carts to flexibly charge electric school buses prior to customer delivery. Based on the charging infrastructure, newly-assembled buses at the EV Build-up Center will take four hours to fully charge.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) anticipates that 30% of all model year 2027 school buses will be electric-powered. This figure is projected to increase to 45% for model year 2032 school buses, according to the EPA’s newly proposed greenhouse gas emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles. Blue Bird’s EV Build-up Center will enable the company to increase its long-term production capacity to 5,000 electric school buses a year.

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