Letenda, a Quebec company that manufactures electric buses, has received an order for four electric buses from the State of Vermont. The announcement of the contract, the value of which has not been disclosed, was made on Wednesday in the presence of the governor of the state, Phil Scott, during a conference organized by the Council on International Relations of Montreal (CORIM).
This is the very first order from the young shoot from Longueuil, which saw the light of day in 2016. Letenda landed a contract from the Vermont Agency of Transportation for four buses of the Electrip model, a 100% electric bus of 30 feet – that is approximately 9 meters, with a range of over 250 km. Unlike Lion Electric, which produces school buses and commercial vehicles, Letenda specializes in urban buses for public transport as well as in shuttles, for example airports or universities.
There is great potential for this bus segment, says Nicolas Letendre, CEO of Letenda. “By 2025, in Canada and the United States, we are talking about a potential market of 1,000 30-foot buses,” he points out.
The four Letenda buses, which will be delivered to Green Mountain Transit (GMT) and Marble Valley Regional Transit District (MVRTD) by 2024, will be in service in the cities of Burlington and Rutland. They will be added to a fleet of 22 electric buses already in circulation or being supplied in the State of Vermont.
Assembly in the United States
To comply with the provisions of Buy American Act, Letenda buses that will be delivered to Vermont will have to be assembled in the United States. However, they will “not necessarily be built in Vermont”, specifies Mr. Letendre, adding that the site where the production plant will be located has not yet been determined but that the company is in discussion with a few states on this subject. .
But Letenda hopes to soon also receive orders here in Quebec. “We are very advanced with transportation companies in Quebec and customers in the corporate shuttle sector,” said the CEO of the company. And to supply the Quebec and Canadian market, Letenda plans to open a plant other than the one in the United States, “a manufacturing site” which will be located in Saguenay.
Last June, Letenda announced that Investissement Québec had become a shareholder in the company, without revealing the amount invested by the financial arm of the Québec government. In addition to the participation of this institutional partner, the company is also counting on attracting private investors to raise financing.