One of the biggest obstacles for school districts to jump on the electric bandwagon has been the exorbitant cost of entry.
The main gripe has been that schools must rely on government grants to purchase these vehicles, which can run $200,000 and up brand new. Certainly, we’re at least a good decade away from realizing completely renewable, zero-emissions school buses that run on electric chassis. But the Detroit Free Press this week profiled an interesting new company born from experience at Tesla Motors that is promising to deliver electric converter kits to existing commercial vehicles to turn them into plug-in hybrid electrics.
It’s called Alte, and it opened a facility in Auburn Hills, Mich., last week. With two former Chrysler execs on its board, the company is targeting two- to four-year-old commercial fleet vehicles that have exceeded their factory warranties. Alte would then offer it’s own 50,000-mile warranty on the powertrain, which the company has estimated could improve fuel economy by 80- to 200 percent.
John Thomas, Alte’s CEO, estimated that the electric system said the goal is to convert 500,000 fleet vehicles over the next five or six years, interesting, nearly the same number of yellow school buses on the road each weekday. The first customer is GulfStream shuttle buses with an order of 3,000 conversion kits.
The price tag? $240 million, or $80,000 per vehicle.
Thomas said Alte recently received $8.4 million in Michigan state tax credits and is pursuing a $101 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy.
