They represent an easy target for rapid and total electrification. And yet, there are no federal targets in place to specifically electrify the roughly 50,000 school buses that ply the country’s roads. An anomaly that Équiterre would like to see corrected.
By establishing a specific target for school buses, Ottawa would send a signal that would facilitate the transition to this type of transportation in different ways. First, it could match its targets with substantial financial assistance exclusively for school transportation. Then, it would attract a little more to Canada the production of zero-emission buses, which is going more abundantly to the United States at the present time.
Our neighbors to the south have a targeted program for school buses, we observe at Équiterre. This makes things much simpler for US school carriers.
Ottawa could take advantage of the establishment of a specific Canadian program to clean up its various electrification aids, and to better coordinate its aid with that of provinces which, like Quebec, already have their own targets. The province hopes to electrify two-thirds (65%) of the approximately 10,000 school buses that will be on the road by 2030.
For the moment, we cannot say that the transition is well under way. There were about 300 electric school buses in the country at the end of 2021. In Quebec, about 900 were ordered last year. To reach the federal target of 2040, it would be necessary to sell 2850 per year for the next 17 years, calculates Équiterre.
“What we believe is that having the equivalent in Canada of the specific program for school buses that exists in the United States would help the transition and facilitate the purchase of zero-emission buses. says Valérie Tremblay, project manager and spokesperson for Équiterre. “At the moment, carriers are a little discouraged given the high prices and the somewhat long delays”.
Appropriate targets and support “would send the message that we really want to make this transition. »
Yellow Bus Alliance
To speed things up, Équiterre and its partners formed the Canadian Alliance for the Electrification of School Buses (ACEAS) earlier this year.
The Trudeau government has already published targets that encompass all types of medium and heavy vehicles, including buses. By 2030, 35% of sales must be zero-emission vehicles. All sales of new medium and heavy vehicles must be zero emissions by 2040.
As we are only talking about sales, vehicles already on the road will continue to circulate for up to 12 years — the average lifespan of a school bus in the country — after the entry into force of these deadlines, deplores Équiterre .
School buses, adds the organization, represent an easy solution for the transition to zero-emission vehicles. Their routes are predictable and often relatively short. “Between scheduled trips, they are usually brought back to a central facility where they can be recharged, making them ideal candidates for electrification,” Équiterre wrote in a study it released on Tuesday.
Question of (big) money
The Canadian Alliance for the Electrification of School Buses has commissioned the firm Dunsky to assess the state of the situation of school buses in the country and to see how the government could accelerate their decarbonization.
The conclusion is clear: everything is a question of money. The acquisition cost of an electric motor school bus of a format comparable to those currently on the road is 1.5 to 2.5 times greater than that of a diesel motor bus. Without help, it would take more than 19 years for a carrier to amortize the surcharge paid to electrify its buses.
The government assistance currently in place reduces the time to amortize the price paid for an electric bus to just over four years. This period can be shortened to about three years for a carrier who would also pocket the revenue from a two-way charging infrastructure where he could resell the excess energy in the batteries of his buses.
Very few carriers in the country are aware of all these measures, notes Équiterre. Some even mature well before the end of the decade. The federal government could therefore demonstrate more clarity in its commitments.
Otherwise, the achievement of current targets, at the level of Canada, “that worries us”, admits Valérie Tremblay. If nothing is done, “we will still be far from the objectives in 2030”.