Electric school buses will be a part of the near future in Austin. By next year, Austin Independent School District (ISD) plans to have three electric buses on the roads next year, with a plan for 25 percent of its school bus purchases to be electric vehicles by then.
The switch is part of a plan to go fully electric on buses by 2035. The school board voted unanimously in favor of the measure, which aims to have half of its bus fleet electric vehicles by 2027, and purchasing only electric vehicles for the district by 2030.
Austin ISD is the first district in Texas to make this pledge. (Though not the first to purchase electric buses. Everman ISD did that in 2020.) The push began when an advocacy group, Environment Texas, sent a letter to Austin ISD urging the district to go electric.
“We applaud AISD for prioritizing the health of our children and the sustainability of our planet,” Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas Research and Policy Center, said when the resolution passed last month. “By going electric, the motors on the bus will be clean, clean, clean.”
The resolution notes that AISD transports 23,000 students on 500 buses, and the switch to electric has three main positives: the health and safety of students in not breathing in diesel fumes, the reduction of greenhouse gases in Travis County, and a cheaper cost in leaving diesel fuel behind.
And, as Environment Texas noted in its release, AISD could receive money from the Environmental Protection Agency, which will soon announce the recipients of $1 billion in rebates for districts that purchase electric buses.
MySA has reached out to AISD for more information on the economics of going fully electric and will update this story.
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School District Embarks on Electric Bus Fleet Plan
With 500 buses in the fleet, the first goal will be to have a quarter be electric.
