Blue Bird receives record order for 180 electric school buses


US bus maker Blue Bird has received an order from the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) for 150 of its All American and 30 of its Vision electric school buses. Delivery is anticipated between October 2024 and early 2025. The order was placed through the district’s local Blue Bird dealer, A-Z Bus Sales. LAUSD… Read more »

Merchants Fleet adds Chevrolet Silverado electric pickup trucks to fleet lineup


US fleet management company Merchants Fleet has expanded its lease and rental fleet with the addition of 250 new 2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV work trucks.  The trucks have an EPA-estimated range of up to 450 miles, a towing capability of up to 10,000 pounds, and a payload of more than 1,400 pounds. Merchants offers the… Read more »

Lucid quadruples size of its Arizona assembly plant for Gravity SUV launch


While sales of the Air sedan have been slow, Lucid is planning much greater capacity for the Gravity, a three-row luxury SUV with 440 miles of range. Startup electric-car maker Lucid Motors cut the ribbon Wednesday on a massive expansion of its U.S. assembly plant in Casa Grande, Arizona. The company has built the Lucid… Read more »

Rome’s public transit agency to buy 400 Iveco electric buses


Rome’s public transport company ATAC (Azienda per la mobilità) has ordered 411 battery-electric city buses from Italian manufacturer Iveco. The €300-million deal, Iveco’s largest electric bus order to date, includes a 10-year, full-service maintenance plan for each bus. Rome’s new buses include both 12- and 18-meter models The first are scheduled to be delivered by… Read more »

Canoo begins volume deliveries of its electric commercial van


We’ve seen a number of EV startups that delivered a lot of hype, but few if any vehicles. For a while, we were tempted to place Canoo in that category, but now the company has begun deliveries of its electric LDV130 commercial van, as part of a large order from Kingbee, a national provider of… Read more »

BMW’s hometown Munich plant to go all-EV as ICE vehicles pass their “tipping point”


BMW says its historic plant in Munich will produce only electric cars from 2027, following a €650-million investment in expansion and upgrades, including the construction of a new vehicle assembly line and a new body shop. BMW’s Munich plant opened in 1922, and produced motorcycles until car production began there in 1952. It currently produces… Read more »

Does China really mean to reduce its EV exports in response to trade complaints?


Governments in Europe and the US are increasingly alarmed about the rise of China’s EV industry, which has benefitted greatly from government subsidies (to say nothing of low-cost labor, technology transfers from Western automakers, and those same automakers’ reluctance to commit to electrification). Policymakers may invoke global trade rules to try to stem the tide…. Read more »

To catch up on electric buses, Europe’s transit firms are working with China


When it comes to the EV race, China hasn’t just lapped the US and Europe—they’re running circles around us. No segment illustrates this embarrassment better than the electric bus market. As Michael Barnard reports in a recent CleanTechnica article, China currently has around 600,000 battery-electric buses operating in its cities. The US (which has 24%… Read more »

US Postal Service unveils its first electric delivery vehicles and charging stations


What a long, strange trip it’s been. After deliberating about a long-overdue modernization of its vehicle fleet for nearly a decade, the US Postal Service (USPS) spent a couple more years trying to avoid complying with President Biden’s 2021 directive to electrify the federal vehicle fleet (of which USPS’s delivery fleet is the largest part)…. Read more »

Exclusive: Black Book used EV values to include Recurrent battery-condition data


The biggest question in buying a used EV is whether its battery is any good and how much range is left. We’re a little closer to an answer now. The Black Book used-car valuation service said Tuesday it would incorporate battery-condition data from Recurrent into its used-EV values. That data lets Black Book vary what… Read more »