Business-wise, 2020 did not deliver an overabundance of success stories. However, the U.S. zero-emission bus (ZEB) market can be counted as one. A new report from CALSTART shows the U.S. ZEB market grew by 24 percent in 2020 and the number of transit properties to have ZEBs on order or in service now stands at 229 – an increase of 53 over 2019.
“Despite the harmful impacts COVID-19 had on the transit industry last year, the ZEB market grew significantly. ZEB’s are the bright spot in the market, and this increase is reflective of a growing level of confidence in technology, which is an improving business case,” said CALSTART President and CEO John Boesel.
The market growth tracked in the annual CALSTART report, “Zeroing in on ZEB’s,” identifies the significance of federal and state investments and incentives. Programs from the state-level, like California’s Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project (HVIP) and the Federal Transit Administration’s Low or No-Emission Bus Program (FTA’s Low-No), are playing a key role in transforming the U.S. bus market. The Low-No program has distributed up to $485 million for ZEBs since 2013. The federal FY21 budget promisingly increased funding for the program to $180 million.
“Our study underscores the opportunity to accelerate the growth of the ZEB market in the United States. In partnership with our industry members, we are calling on Congress and the president to increase federal funding for ZEB’s by at least a factor of four times,” said CALSTART Vice President Fred Silver.
In addition to the growth of ZEB’s in the full-size transit bus market, the report notes there are now nearly 700 ZEB’s deployed in other applications such as airport shuttles and paratransit services.
This year’s CALSTART report includes figures for the Canadian ZEB market, which is a first for this data report. In Canada alone, more than 249 ZEB’s have been deployed, with a high concentration in the province of Ontario.
Other key findings from Zeroing in on ZEBs include:
- The top full sized ZEB states are California (1,160), Washington (246), Florida (164), Colorado (100) and Illinois (78).
- 1,015 full sized transit buses are currently deployed in the U.S. with more than 1,775 on backlog.
- New orders for smaller zero emission buses are growing with a statewide procurement just completed in California.
- Canada is committing to zero-emissions, with more than 249 full sized transit buses and a goal to deploy nearly 5,000 ZEBs across all provinces and major cities.
