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One of the EV350 all-electric commuter busses GreenPower Motor Company, Inc. has delivered to the city of Porterville. The city has ordered 10. Source: GreenPower Motor Company, Inc.

published on March 28, 2019 - 12:37 PM
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GreenPower Motor Company, Inc. delivered three all-electric commuter buses to the city of Portville on Wednesday.

At a combined cost of $2.5 million, that brings the number of busses built by the company and delivered to Porterville — the same city where their final assembly occurred — to eight.

In all, the city has ordered 10 EV350 buses to replace its fleet of compressed natural gas-powered vehicles.

Company officials report they have substantially completed the last two buses and plan to deliver them some time in the second quarter of this year.

Each bus has 430-kilowatt-hour batteries that allow them to run daily routes of 190-230 miles.

GreenPower, a Canadian-based company, launched a bus-manufacturing plant in 2015 inside a former airplane hangar at the Porterville Municipal Airport, but only final assembly has been done there, with portions of the manufacturing occurring overseas.

Last year, GreenPower leased a 50,000-square-foot manufacturing space in another part of the city to provide enough space for buses to be fully manufactured there.

While none of the busses on Porterville’s order have been fully assembled in the city, GreenPower Vice President of Sales and Marketing Ryne Shetterly said that as of the start of this month the additional Porterville site has been ready, so full assembly of new busses now can occur in the city.

In addition, he said, GreenPower has expanded its staff in Porterville from four —before the new site was leased — to the current 10, and plans are to increase that number to 30 later this year.


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