Federal grants will put more electric school buses on Georgia roads

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Bibb County Schools is one of the dozens of Georgia districts on a wait list for a federal program to pay to put electric school buses on the road.

Credit: Grant Blankenship / GPB News

A handful of school districts around the state will transition at least some of their bus fleet to electric buses, thanks to money from the federal government.

On the one hand, traditional buses are dirty, bad for the climate and expensive to operate. Over its life, a bus can rack up close to $200,000 in repairs 

On the other hand, the upfront cost of cleaner and cheaper-to-operate electric vehicles can be too steep for many school districts. 

Now the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program will pay for 137 electric buses to be spread across 15 Georgia districts, ranging from Atlanta Public Schools to rural Cook County Schools in South Georgia. 

The awards are part of an almost $1 billion nationwide investment in electric buses from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill in 2022. 

For the dozens of Georgia districts on the waitlist for electric buses this year, there are four more years in the program and $4 billion left to apply for.