BANGOR DAILY NEWS • December 10, 2024
There have been many news stories recently about several Maine school districts that are having serious problems with their electric school buses. The buses were manufactured by Canadian company Lion Electric, a relative newcomer to the school bus industry. The news stories about Lion have unfortunately given people the impression that electric school buses are inherently unreliable and unsafe; however, it is important to know that Lion is not the only manufacturer of electric school buses, and the problems with Lion buses are not endemic to electric school buses in general. All of the “big three” American school bus manufacturers — Blue Bird Corp., IC Bus and Thomas Built Buses — offer electric versions of their buses. ~ Adrian Dowling, South Portland