The quest for zero emissions school buses

A new school year has begun. And that means tens of thousands of fluorescent yellow school buses are back on the roads. 

School buses are an essential part of education in the Garden State. An estimated 800,000 students in New Jersey (or about 60% of all students) ride 21,700 school buses each day. 

All of those school buses also have an environmental impact on air quality.

Transportation accounts for about 40% of pollution. And diesel exhaust from school buses, “ranks among the air pollutants that EPA believes pose the greatest public health risks,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Experts say that some exhaust and pollutants end up inside the bus with passengers.

“Studies have shown that the air inside the school bus can actually be more polluted than the air just behind the bus,” said Caroline McCallum, the co-director of New Jersey Clean Cities Coalition. “And that’s because these exhausts can leak into the bus cabin through cracks and vents, exposing children to higher levels of harmful, particulate matter in a confined space.”

That is why New Jersey has joined other states in exploring ways to convert more of its fleet to electric. 

Unlike diesel school buses, electric school buses have zero emissions from the tailpipe and significantly less greenhouse gas emissions.

However, converting to electric requires schools to find additional funding, infrastructure and training for drivers and maintenance workers. And with the Trump administration eliminating incentives for electric vehicles at the federal level, the work of electrifying school bus fleets has shifted more to states and local governments.

But advocates say the effort  – and children – are worth it.

“That’s our future that’s driving on those buses,” said McCallum. 

A new electric era in school transportation

Electric school buses came onto the scene in 2014, when three California school districts became the first to use them. Since then, there’s been a push by many school districts and state governments to adopt them and eventually replace diesel school buses.

New Jersey is one of these states and Governor Phil Murphy has advocated for programs and grants to help schools electrify their bus fleets.

As of July 2025, there are currently 51 registered electric school buses in the Garden State, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection, implemented in a pilot program.

Now, some lawmakers, environmentalists, and industry leaders are working to expand the number of electric school buses on the roads. 

At a conference over the summer entitled New Jersey Clean Cities Coalition’s Electric School Bus Academy, South Jersey government officials, as well as energy company and non-profit representatives met to discuss the importance, issues and practical solutions around electric school buses, to provide some optimism for school districts in adopting them. 

“And being able to just be in the room where we’re all just talking about being human and our need for that clean air and how it changes from, you know, one town or neighborhood to another, that there are things that we can all do to support cleaner air outcomes is powerful,” said McCallum.

Not only can electric buses reduce pollution, but they can also help supply energy to local grids, through bidirectional charging. 

Bidirectional charging, or specifically vehicle-to-grid (V2G) or vehicle-to-building (V2B), is treating the buses like batteries that can provide their leftover charge back to a building or the local energy grid when not in use.

“They’re [electric buses] only in operation six hours a day for pickups and drop offs of kids,” said Cory Harris, a senior program manager at Atlantic City Electric. “But during the times that they’re not in operation, 18 hours a day plus over the weekends also, that’s time that they can, instead of just being sitting ducks there, they can provide power back to the grid.”

Challenges of electric bus fleets 

For schools, the main issues with electric school buses are financial and practical. 

Purchasing a new bus has a significant upfront cost. Prices per bus can range from around $260,000 to around $420,000, according to the Electric Bus Initiative, or about two to four times as much as a diesel bus.

The capacity and range of buses must also be considered.

The south Jersey event allowed attendees to see a smaller model that seats 30 passengers and have a range of 120 miles, and a larger model that can seat up to 81 passengers and can travel 150 miles between charges. 

Planning is key for school districts that not only use buses for daily use, but also for sporting events, arts and music performances and field trips.

Another hurdle schools face is the infrastructure for charging, which means that parking lots and grounds must be updated or rebuilt to accommodate an electric fleet. Drivers and mechanics also need to be trained on new equipment.

Brett Fetty, principal of Camden County Technical School, said he likes the idea of electric school buses, but finds that there’s a lack of concrete plans for how to implement all of these changes.

“Nothing’s for sure, nothing’s nailed down,” Fetty said. “Schools don’t want to entertain that [electric buses] until it’s set.”

Providing incentives

To encourage local districts, the state is working to provide grants, loans and programs that can cover some of these practical issues.

For example, programs that help districts with electric school bus acquisition include the NJDEP’s New Jersey Fleet Advisor, The NJ Environmental Development Authority’s NJ Zero-Emission Incentive Program and NJ ZEV Financing, and MOD Energy’s mobile charging programs.

This can be a tough process for schools to make work, especially with the budget issues districts have already been dealing with.

In addition with the Trump administration’s roll back of climate initiatives, grant funding is no longer as reliable at the federal level.

“We saw from day one, with the executive orders,” said Spencer Sydorko, the Senior Regional Sales Manager for the electric bus manufacturer RIDE. “We saw business slow down, we saw orders basically fall because of the funding freeze.”

Previously awarded funds have been released, according to Sydorko, but there’s no indication of future rounds of federal funding for clean school buses, like the EPA’s Clean School Bus program.

This shifts the burden for change to state and local governments and to industry.

“The good thing is states have their focuses and they have their agendas of what they’re trying to accomplish from a green standpoint,” Sydorko said. “And so from a business standpoint, we just have to be hyper-targeted in where we approach because if you’re going somewhere where federal funding is no more, then the state doesn’t believe in the technology or the purpose of it.”

In the meantime, the NJDEP is currently accepting applications for a second round of funding for electric school buses.

School districts also may not own their buses, but contract them from companies like Holcomb, which is also trying to incorporate electric school buses into its fleet. 

“They [Holcomb] only service a couple of routes for our district,” said Albert Morales, a South Jersey public school administrator. “But it’s nice to see that it’s taking a lead on that.”

Despite the obstacles, there’s still optimism for the future that it will continue to be cheaper and easier to adopt electric school buses as the idea catches on.

Health is the bottom line

At the Electric Bus Academy event, Shaneka Boucher, the founder of Social Responsibility Through Me, a non-profit organization located in Camden County, talked about when her six-year-old daughter was hospitalized for a severe asthma attack.

“If you have a child that has asthma, if you’ve ever dealt with a child that has asthma, you know that being hospitalized or going to the doctor frequently becomes a part of it,” said Boucher.

Boucher was left asking medical professionals why this was happening to her child. Many of the answers pointed to air pollution. 

Around 26.8 million people, or 8% of Americans suffer from asthma, according to the Global Statistics. While many people across the nation have been diagnosed with asthma, a larger issue has been presented when it comes to the correlation between air quality and asthma. 

The American Lung Association has given Camden County a “D” grade in terms of air quality and neighboring areas such as Gloucester County and Philadelphia “F” grades, according to the Camden County commissioner, Jeff Nash. 

With the combination of poor air quality and decreasing health conditions among students, the need for electric school buses has become more apparent to educators, students, and parents alike.

With around 90% of school buses using diesel exhausts, the Anti Pollution Plan estimated that these diesel buses emit “8.4 million metric tons of greenhouse gases each year,” contributing to climate change and air quality issues.

Advocates for electric buses say they will not only help improve the air quality in New Jersey, but residents are hopeful that the health of students will also see improvements.

And that makes the need for investment clear, they say.

“We all need clean air,” said McCallum.