North America Electric Bus Market - Growth, Trends, and Forecast (2020 - 2025)

The North America Electric Bus Market is anticipated to register a CAGR of about 26.76 % during the forecast period.

- The growth of the electric bus market in North America is attributed to the increasing concerns about the depletion of fossil fuels and increasing levels of environmental pollution.
- In order to tackle the aforementioned issues, governments in the region, such as Canada, initiated changes in the public transportation systems, by committing to electrify their complete electric bus fleet in areas, such as Montreal and British Columbia.
- The United States has been leading the electric bus market in the region, with increased governmental initiatives, such as tariff waiver programs for electric bus operators.
- Some of the possible restraints that hinder the growth of the electric bus market in the region are careful route optimization for better fuel economy, tail pipe emissions from hybrid buses, limited capital expenditure grant, insufficient driver training that leads to lower fuel-saving achievement.

Key Market Trends
Increasing Adoption of Electric Buses

Electric buses offer more comfort to travelers compared to gasoline or diesel buses. The NVH levels in electric buses are minimal, unlike traditional diesel buses, providing enhanced comfort to passengers.

Also, the limited vibrations during operation aids in extending the vehicle’s life, in turn, reducing maintenance costs, and also offers comfort to passengers.

Currently, the United States is the most promising market in the region, and it is expected to lead the demand for e-bus over the forecast period. There are presently close to 650 electric buses (total 2255 zero-emission buses) running in the United States, and the demand is over taking the production rate, and federal grants are making it easy for transit operators to acquire new units. Almost every state in the United States has a transit agency that currently owns or planning to own new electric buses to its fleet.

In Canada, government initiatives are helping the growth of the electric bus market. Although, Canada is home to electric bus companies, such as Quebec based Lion Electric and Vancouver based Green Power, the adoption rate in the country has been relatively slow. In February 2020, Canada launched North America’s first research cluster for researching fuel cell and battery-electric buses. The Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC), along with seven other partners, are contributing USD 4.2 million to support the National Academic Committee on Zero-Emission Buses (NAC-ZEB), along with additional federal funding of USD 551,000. CUTRIC will support research in electric and hydrogen bus modeling and simulation tools, cyber security of electric buses, battery and fuel cell electric bus performance visualization for batteries, motors, powertrain, fuel cell stack optimization, etc.

In 2016, along with Paris, Mexico City was one of the first cities to announce restrictions for diesel ICEs as soon as 2025 under the C40 fossil-fuel-free streets declaration. The country also aims for zero-emission buses from 2025 and zero-emissions in major areas of the cities by 2030 also in accordance with the C40 declaration.

In January 2020, Mexico added 63 electric trolley buses to its public transportation fleet under the Trolebici project, which aims to improve transport and commuting infrastructure in Mexico City with an investment of nearly USD 35million.

The COVID 19 outbreak is expected to restrain the market growth due to the shut down of manufacturing facilities and fall in demand due to public transportation avoidance by passengers.

United States Will Lead the Electric Bus Market in North America

According to CALSTART, in 2019, a 37% growth in the United States electric bus fleet compared to the figures in 2018. Many states and cities in the United States are receiving grants for purchasing the electric buses. For instance, in 2019, the City of Portland in Maine received a grant for its first 2 electric buses that will start operations from 2021. Similarly, Wichita received a federal grant for the first electric bus in Kansas in 2019. As of 2019, only five states, namely North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia, New Hampshire, and Arkansas, did not have any near plans to induct electric buses in their present fleet.

Currently, California has the highest number of zero-emission buses (1016) and over 200 electric buses in use, along with many other backlogged order.

The adoption of electric buses is expected to save a lot of fuel costs for transit agencies in the country. In Chicago, a research found that 2 electric buses save nearly USD 24000 of annual fuel expenses.

The implementation of stringent emission laws and regulations are expected to fuel the market growth of electric buses in the United States. Many cities in the United States now require a certain fraction of their bus fleet to be electric or hybrid, and they are also pushing the limitations on new IC engine bus tenders. For instance, SE PTA, the transport authority of Philadelphia, is committed to restricting the diesel bus share in its bus fleet to less than 5% by 2021.

The United States is the hardest-hit country by the COVID19 crisis, and the unavailability of the workforce in manufacturing facilities, shutdowns, budget trimming, fear of using public transportation, etc., led to the slowing down of electric bus demand and the market is expected to show slow recovery.

Competitive Landscape
The North America electric bus market is led by a few players which include Proterra, BYD Motors and New Flyer of America. Companies bringing out electric school bus models include Blue Bird Corporation, Nova Bus Corporation, The Lion Electric Co., Thomas Built Buses, GreenPower, Collins Bus Corporation, and Trans Tech.

The companies are expanding their product portfolio by launching more number of products and are actively taking more orders. For instance,

- in June 2019, Proterra Inc. was selected by the Virginia Department of General Services for the supply of battery-electric buses and charging stations for its state-wide contract.
- in July 2020, Yutong announced that a major batch of 130 battery-powered trolleybuses to Mexico City. The new trolleybus fleet is divided into 80, 12-meter vehicles and 50, 18-meter buses.

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