The Lion Electric Company (Lion), a manufacturer of purpose-built all-electric medium and heavy-duty urban vehicles, has delivered 10 battery-electric LionC school buses to the Twin Rivers Unified School District in Sacramento, California. With these new buses, Twin Rivers is now operating the largest zero-emission school bus fleet in North America, with 40 all-electric school buses in its fleet.

The 10 LionC buses are part of California Climate Investments, a statewide initiative that puts billions of cap-and-trade dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The buses were funded in large part by cap-and-trade dollars, with additional funding from the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and California’s Carl Moyer Memorial Air Quality Standards Attainment Program. The buses each have a range of 125 miles and will eliminate on average 230 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year.

The Sac Metro Air District, California Air Resources Board and Twin Rivers School District have collaborated on funding 63 zero-emission school buses in the region to date, with an additional 90 pending delivery in 2021. To support these buses, more than $4.5 million has been funded to support the charging infrastructure.

Twin Rivers was among the first fleets in the United States to put all-electric buses into service when it received its first buses from Lion in 2016. Lion has worked closely with the district to train staff in vehicle operation and maintenance, both on-site at its transit yard and at Lion’s nearby Sacramento Experience Center where the vehicles are also serviced. The district has since consistently added more electric buses to its fleet and was among the first school districts to receive electric buses from the California Energy Commission’s first School Bus Replacement Program.

All of Lion’s vehicles are purpose-built for electric propulsion from the ground up, and are manufactured at Lion’s North American facility, which has a current capacity to produce 2,500 electric vehicles per year.

Lion has delivered more than 300 all-electric school buses in North America with more than 6 million miles driven since 2016. Lion’s vehicles are distributed and serviced through the company’s network of Experience Centers, including two locations in California along with facilities in New York, Washington, Florida and Arizona.