The East Bay Clean Cities Coalition announced that Calstart and the California Air Resources Board are holding workshops on the Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project (HVIP) today and tomorrow. Hybrid-electric school buses are among the HVIP eligible vehicles for which grant funding is available.
The first workshop being held today is at the offices of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in San Francisco, and the other slated for tomorrow will be at the Sacramento AQMD offices.
“The voucher reduces the cost right at the time of purchase,” said Richard Battersby of EBCC. “No complicated proposals. No long contracts. No reimbursements.”
He added that the HVIP program helps fleets buy clean vehicles “faster and for less.” For example, the HVIP Voucher amount for the 2012 Hybrid E-450 school bus with a Ford 5.4L gasoline engine is $35,000. School buses with the charge-sustaining Eaton hybrid system are also eligible. Eaton Corporation supplies and supports the hybrid electric systems on all IC Bus and Thomas Built hybrid school buses.
This “buy-down” opportunity enables school districts and school bus contractors in California to save scarce transportation dollars when purchasing hybrid school buses. Just ask Transportation Director John Clements of Kings Canyon Unified School District. Clements told School Transportation News this spring that HVIP grant funds enabled him to purchase several charge-sustaining hybrids and one plug-in for his fleet of 70-plus school buses.
He has become somewhat of an expert in tapping grant money to pay for his CNG, hybrid-electric and all-electric school buses, including most recently, a half-million-dollar CARB grant for three more all-electric eTrans buses by Trans Tech. Altogether, his district has received about $2.7 million in funding from local air quality districts and federal incentive programs.
Clements said he learned about his state’s hybrid incentive programs by attending meetings and workshops in Sacramento throughout the years.
For more information regarding the HVIP, contact Joe Calavita of ARB. Those in other states can access information on state and federal incentive programs online through their local ARB or through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
