The Pontiac schools’ transportation department will look a lot different before the end of this year.

At their April 28 meeting, the school board voted 5-2 to approve the relocation of their transportation offices and bus yard to a new site between Pontiac High School and Pontiac Middle School. Trustees Tanisha Miller and Jennifer Dooley voted against the proposal.

The bus yard and offices will move from the Fell Center and be completed around the beginning of the school year in the fall. The fate of the Fell Center will be determined later by the district. The cost of the relocation will be $3.5 million and be paid for with funds from the 2020 school improvement bond.

The bus fleet will be much different when it shifts to its new home.

The district received $9.75 million in November 2023 to purchase 25 electric vehicle buses through the Clean School Bus Program grants and $5.9 million in federal funding to buy 15 electric buses through the same federal program.

The first 25 are at a facility in Marshall, having received a final detailing and maintenance, and will be delivered to Pontiac in the next few months. The second set of 15 buses is on schedule to be delivered to the district in 2026.

The 25 EV buses will replace diesel buses currently in use. The department will then have 25 EV buses and 20 diesel buses to cover all 42 bus routes in the district.

A handful of diesel buses will be kept for trips beyond the 120-mile limit for fully-charged electric buses.

The new electric buses can carry the same 77 passengers as diesel buses and weigh about 2,000 pounds more with batteries built into the undercarriage. The vehicles are just as reliable in cold weather, but tend to lose up to 20% of a battery charge when temperatures dip. It takes about three-and-a-half hours to go from 0 to a 100% charge.

“We are looking at this as a holistic approach to going electric,” said Bill Holcomb, energy, technology and innovation specialist for the Pontiac School District. “The anticipation of the cost of total ownership of the electric vehicles are roughly about 45% that of a diesel vehicle.”

A portion of the savings comes because electric vehicles have fewer moving parts and require less maintenance, and the cost of electricity to charge batteries is cheaper than diesel fuel.

According to Michigan Environmental Law and Policy Center, there are 17,000 diesel-fueled school buses transporting over 800,000 Michigan students each school year.

“A single electric bus can eliminate 1,690 tons of CO2 over its lifespan, the equivalent of taking 27 cars off the road,” Michigan Chief Infrastructure Officer Zachary Kolodin said in a statement. “These buses will save schools money on maintenance costs while meaningfully advancing the state’s climate goals.”

The district in Pontiac has been able to avoid any delays in delivery of their new EV buses, even with a flurry of executive orders that have been issued by the new Trump administration.

In a January 20 executive order titled “Unleashing American Energy,” Trump laid out a new policy “to eliminate the ‘electric vehicle (EV) mandate” and, in part, “promote true customer choice, which is essential for economic growth and innovation”.

Another executive order revoked unspent government funds for electric-vehicle charging stations.

Chargers from Borg Warner will be used in Pontiac and kept in storage while the district builds its electrical infrastructure in the new yard with the help of DTE Energy. Once the project is complete, the district will be reimbursed through the DTE Charging Forward program.

“As far as we know it today, everything is on track and on schedule,” Holcomb said.