Any year that school bus production figures spike is cause for celebration, especially amid “anemic” growth in the larger trucking
industry.
That is how Steve Tam, vice president of ACT Research, put it to me early in the fall. Truck manufacturers were laying o! workers, in part due to Trump administration tariffs and reduced purchase interest among companies. Class 8 forecasts were down by 20 to 25 percent.
But he sounded more optimism for the bus market, as production was up 11 percent in July alone. For school buses specifically, manufacturing exhibited continued resiliency from pandemic induced shortages despite tariff pressures with a 6.7-percent spike in overall output. But within those numbers, the market disruption provided by alternative vehicles appears to account for a big drop-off in smaller school buses.
Total Type A small school bus production fell almost 14 percent from 2023-2024, as Type 1 vehicles weighing under 10,000 pounds GVWR came in at 1,041 units compared to over three times as many as the previous year. The good news is larger Type A-2 school buses weighing over 10,000 pounds GVWR nearly doubled to 6,326 units.
As School Transportation News articles and conversations with attendees at STN EXPO and TSD conferences continue to indicate, school districts are foregoing the smaller Type A school buses for light-duty passenger vehicles to transport students experiencing homelessness and those with Individualized Education Programs. It should come as little surprise considering the National Congress on School Transportation last May approved for the first time, a section on the use of alternative transportation vehicles for student transportation.
The Type C conventional category remained vibrant as reported output increased over 17 percent to 30,654 units, the most since 31,834 for the 2018-2018 production cycle and the third-most over the past decade. School districts have long preferred Type Cs for home-to-school routes, and that trend has been buoyed in recent years by OEMs offering wheelchair lifts on their models, which has also further affected the Type A market.
Type D transit-style school buses, on the other hand, came in at 2,324 units manufactured, or about 7 percent of the Type C figure. Type D’s have historically accounted for 10- to 15-percent of the number of Type Cs produced each year.
Another big winner? Diesel rebounded to nearly 27,000 units, similar to pre-COVID-19 levels. That could be largely due to a hiatus in the five-year,$5-billion Clean School Bus Program that has heavily favored electric school bus awards. (Word is funds will start up again in 2026.) Additionally, uncertainty has centered on the status of the pending federal greenhouse gas emission rule and a rollback of California requirements.
Two years ago, the conversation was that the industry might be facing a large amount of pre-buy orders as districts looked to delay the inevitable cost increase associated with more strict diesel emissions
equipment and software. Those fears have subsided as the EPA is in the process of publishing updated rule making to pare back a lot of those requirements.
OEMs led by Daimler Trucks North America are suing the California Air Resources Board over its rules, arguing they are incompatible with the rollbacks from Washington, D.C. For the larger commercial sector, Tam said ACT Research removed the prospect of fuel buys entirely from its forecast.
Electric school bus output was flat. Meanwhile, Blue Bird and Micro Bird remain the lone propane suppliers to the market, courtesy of the
ROUSH CleanTech autogas injection system, which accounts for another year of reduced numbers. Its gasoline cousin remained consistent at over 10,000 units produced. Interest is only ramping up as Cummins’ new octane engine enters the marketplace this year. IC Bus and Thomas Built Buses are already set to o!er models.
As for tariffs? They certainly hit the school bus industry. Unsurprisingly, few OEMs chose to publicly weigh in on their impact to manufacturing costs and purchasing. But two respondents said they indeed had to pass along increased supplier and parts costs to customers, with one of them adding the tariffs forced layoffs of company workers.
Editor’s Note: As reprinted from the School Transportation News Buyer’s Guide.
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