Canadian electric school bus manufacturer The Lion Electric Company is making plans to open a plant in the U.S., reported CNBC.
Incoming President Joe Biden pledged to direct funds toward replacing 500,000 of the country’s school buses with electric vehicles by 2030. This update in transportation infrastructure, which would include the construction of thousands of charging stations across the U.S., is a change that Lion Electric officials said the company is ready to meet.
“We’re well equipped to do that. It’s also one of the reasons why we’re opening that factory in the U.S. within the next two years,” Lion Electric CEO Marc Bedard told Jim Cramer during a Jan. 13 episode of “Mad Money” on CNBC. “That factory itself will allow the manufacturing capacity of over 20,000 units per year.”
Lion Electric recently entered into a merger agreement with Northern Genesis Acquisition Corp. Bedard added that they are planning to use the proceeds of the merger to fund the company’s growth plans. And as STN previously reported, Lion is contracted to provide 2,500 commercial electric vehicles over the next five years to Amazon.
Lion Electric has been manufacturing and selling electric school buses since 2016 and currently has over 300 school buses on the road.
Related: NTSB: Emergency Responders Are Unprepared for Responding to Electric Vehicles Fires
Related: Think Tank Report Promotes Electric School Buses
