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Jun. 4—The first electric school buses built in West Virginia may be rolling off the assembly line in September.
Mark Nestlen, a spokesperson for GreenPower Motor Company Inc., spoke during Gov. Jim Justice's pandemic briefing Thursday and said the company is taking possession of its manufacturing facility in South Charleston on Aug. 1.
"Buses will be rolling out by September," he said, adding that school districts can take advantage of a program to use federal dollars to purchase them.
"In essence, they can almost get those buses for free. The large school buses will have a $375,000 rebate from the federal government. For the smaller school buses, it's $285,000. and then they get an additional $20,000 per bus after that to work on charging infrastructure," Nestlen said.
Justice also on Thursday directed West Virginia Department of Economic Development Secretary Mitch Carmichael to work alongside GreenPower to develop a pilot project to familiarize school districts in the state with electric school buses.
The pilot project will be designed to help school districts take advantage of the federal money that is currently available for the nearly 100 percent purchase of electric buses.
"Governor, with your direction for us to get out there and show the school districts how this will work for them, in combination with this money coming down from the federal government, is really going to do the job of helping move students safely, get them to school, help them learn better, and will achieve more economic growth for the state," Nestien said.
Justice made the announcement in January that GreenPower Motor Company, Inc. would be coming to the state and begin production this year.
He said the facility will start with up to 200 new jobs with a potential to bring 900 jobs when full production of zero-emission, all-electric school buses is reached in two years.
"GreenPower is pleased to announce its zero-emissions, all-electric school bus manufacturing operations are expanding east of the Mississippi River, with West Virginia becoming our school bus manufacturing base of operations for the region," Brendan Riley, President of GreenPower, said at the time. "West Virginia has shown us to be a pro-business state that has a workforce ready to take advantage of clean energy jobs."
Nestlen also praised West Virginia, saying it is "a business friendly state."
"We made the right decision (to locate in the state)," he said.
"We are anxious to see those buses rolling off the assembly line," Justice said.