Chart: Which states have the most electric school buses?

Canary Media’s chart of the week translates crucial data about the clean energy transition into a visual format. Canary thanks Clean Energy Counsel for its support of the column.

It’s back-to-school season in the U.S., and more students than ever are headed to class on electric, emissions-free, battery-powered buses.

Here are the states where EV school buses are truly on a roll, per a new PIRG analysis of World Resources Institute (WRI) data.

Electric school buses are a crucial tool for cleaning up transportation, the single largest source of carbon pollution in the country. They’re also an important public health intervention: Conventional diesel-powered school buses expose children to levels of air pollution that can cause respiratory harm and weaken cognitive performance.

Thanks to the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, school districts across the country are now receiving federal funding to swap out their dirty diesel buses for shiny new battery-powered models. To date, the Environmental Protection Agency, which administers this program, has awarded nearly $3 billion to fund around 8,500 EV school buses at 1,000 schools. It plans to spend up to $5 billion when all is said and done.

California, the most populous U.S. state, boasts the most EV school buses on its roads — and has the most robust pipeline of any state. The Golden State has more than 3,000 electric school buses ​“committed,” WRI’s umbrella term for EV buses already on the road, delivered, ordered, or for which a district has been awarded funding to purchase.

Maryland, which in 2022 mandated that all new school buses purchased or contracted must be electric by 2025, has the second-largest fleet of delivered and operational buses. New York, which has mandated that its entire school bus fleet be electric by 2035 — not just new purchases — has the second-biggest EV school bus pipeline.

Overall, the U.S. currently has 12,216 ​“committed” EV school buses, per WRI. That’s a big step up from the end of last year, when the same figure was just under 9,000, but still only a fraction of the overall U.S. school bus fleet of nearly 500,000 vehicles.

The wheels of the EV school bus revolution are starting to turn in the U.S. — but they need to roll much faster to get the country to a place where every school bus is safe for the planet, and for kids.

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