Electric School Bus Problems: Recalls, Cold Range, and Lion Collapse

Electric school bus problems reported across U.S. districts fall into a handful of recurring categories: safety recalls affecting the two largest manufacturers, the bankruptcy of Lion Electric and the voiding of warranties on roughly 3,400 of its buses, sharp range losses in cold weather, high purchase and charging costs, a shortage of technicians trained on high-voltage systems, disappointing results from vehicle-to-grid pilots, and shifting federal funding. Some districts have made the transition work. Others have parked their buses or are planning a return to diesel.

Safety Recalls and Fires

Both leading electric school bus manufacturers have issued recalls in the past two years. In early 2026, Blue Bird recalled electric buses after a crash into a tree in Madison County, Illinois, in November 2025. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that loose 12-volt cables could cause “intermittent system failures or total loss of vehicle functions,” including loss of steering assist, braking assist, and instrument panel displays. Blue Bird said no injuries or deaths had been linked to the defect.¹

A separate Blue Bird recall (NHTSA 25V249000) covered 163 electric Vision buses from the 2022–2024 model years for a software flaw that failed to alert drivers when secondary brake assist was lost. Two October 2024 collisions were tied to the defect: one caused by a blown fuse, the other by a disconnected wiring harness. Neither triggered a diagnostic warning.² Transport Canada issued a parallel recall for hydraulic-brake Vision buses covering the 2023–2026 model years, citing the same loss of secondary brake assist and extended stopping distances.³

In April 2026, International Motors recalled 1,896 IC Bus electric school buses from the 2022–2027 model years. A bypass circuit in the high-voltage disconnect switch could keep the battery powered even with the switch set to “Off,” creating an electrocution risk for first responders and technicians who believed the system was de-energized. NHTSA issued “Do Not Drive” and “Park Outside” advisories, with owner notifications scheduled for June 2026.⁴ Lion Electric recalled 43 of its 2024–2025 LionC buses for a parking brake defect that could allow the lever to disengage without pressing the release button, creating a rollaway risk.⁵

Fires have also drawn attention. On December 10, 2025, a Los Angeles Unified School District electric bus caught fire under the 210 Freeway overpass in Lake View Terrace. No students were aboard; the driver was hospitalized for smoke inhalation, and hazmat crews were dispatched to monitor air quality and water runoff from the lithium-ion batteries. The cause remains under investigation.⁶ In September 2025, two LionC electric buses caught fire in Montreal, and the Quebec Ministry of Education ordered all Lion school bus models taken out of service immediately.⁷

The Lion Electric Collapse Left Thousands of Buses Stranded

The largest single failure in the sector is the collapse of Lion Electric, a Quebec-based manufacturer that received $159 million in federal Clean School Bus funding to produce 435 buses. The company, once valued at $4.7 billion, was sold in May 2025 for $6 million. Lion shuttered its plants, terminated most employees, and failed to deliver $95 million worth of buses it had committed to produce.⁸

The new owners, Groupe MACH, notified school districts that all warranties on Lion buses purchased outside Quebec were null and void.⁷ That left roughly 3,400 Lion buses in the United States without manufacturer support.⁹ The consequences for individual districts have been severe:

In Yarmouth, Maine, two buses purchased with federal grant money “ran properly for approximately two weeks” before producing persistent error messages, according to Superintendent Andrew Dolloff. Neither operated during the 2024–25 school year. Dolloff said the situation was “giving EVs a bad reputation.”¹⁰¹¹
In Winthrop, Maine, all four Lion buses were parked as of late 2025. An assistant to the superintendent said the buses “do not run for more than a month before needing more repairs.”⁷
Homer, Michigan, received $2.8 million in federal funding for seven Lion buses. The superintendent said all Lion contacts had been fired, warranties were invalid, and the district was sourcing its own repair parts. Homer plans to return to diesel as the buses reach end-of-life.⁸
In Herscher, Illinois, six of 25 electric buses needed repairs and the district was paying alternate vendors out of pocket.⁷
Madison Parish, Louisiana, has struggled to find anyone able to service its 14 Lion buses.⁸

Districts in Ohio and Illinois that were promised Lion buses under the Clean School Bus Program reported that they never received them and did not expect to.⁸

Cold Weather Cuts Range Sharply

Cold-weather performance is one of the most frequent complaints. Battery capacity drops as temperatures fall, and heating the cabin competes with propulsion for energy. Manufacturers advertise 100 to 220 miles of range for a typical Type C bus, but those figures assume roughly 70°F on flat terrain. Real-world range can fall to 70–80 percent of rated capacity in moderate cold and 50–60 percent in extreme conditions.¹²

A Cornell University study of electric transit buses in Ithaca, New York, found energy consumption jumped 48 percent when temperatures dropped to 25–32°F. About half of that increase came from the battery heating itself; the rest went to cabin heating and reduced regenerative braking efficiency.¹³ An evaluation of six Montana districts found 30–40 percent range reductions below minus 20°F, though buses still completed routes averaging 25 miles.¹⁴

The clearest public dispute over cold-weather operation has played out in the Lake Shore Central School District near Buffalo, New York. Parents alleged drivers were turning down or off the heat to conserve battery, leaving students “freezing” on rides home in temperatures as low as 23°F, and reported breakdowns, with one student waiting more than 35 minutes for a replacement bus. Superintendent Phil Johnson denied that the district condones turning off heat, stating procedures require it to stay on and that battery capacity is “more than sufficient to support both the route and continuous heating.”¹⁵ The district operates 23 electric buses, 20 of them acquired through a $7.9 million EPA grant.¹⁶

Districts coping with these limits typically assign electric buses to shorter, flatter routes and avoid using them for field trips. San Diego Unified requires a minimum 75 percent charge before a bus leaves the yard and caps routes at 60 miles.¹⁷ Others precondition buses by heating the cabin and battery while still plugged in, or add auxiliary diesel heaters to preserve electric range.¹⁸

Purchase Prices and Charging Costs

Electric school buses average roughly $352,000 and have exceeded $370,000 under the Clean School Bus Program, with some state averages reaching $500,000. A conventional diesel bus costs less than $100,000. About 80 percent of electric school buses procured in 2023 were subsidized by government programs, which has shielded districts from the true price.¹⁹

Charging infrastructure is a second cost layer. Beyond the chargers themselves — DC fast chargers cost significantly more than Level 2 units — districts pay for trenching, permitting, electrical panel upgrades, and sometimes new transformers. Charging multiple buses at once can trigger utility “demand charges” based on peak power draw, which in some cases have been steep enough to erase expected fuel savings.²⁰ One transit analysis found high electricity rates made cost per mile for an electric bus nearly double that of a diesel bus on the same route.²¹

Proponents argue that lower fuel and maintenance costs close the gap over a bus’s life. The Electric School Bus Initiative estimates lifetime fuel and maintenance savings of over $100,000, or roughly $7,000 per year.²² Those savings depend heavily on local electricity rates and whether demand charges are managed.

Maintenance and Technician Shortages

Electric buses have fewer moving parts than diesel buses and eliminate oil changes, but they introduce high-voltage systems most school district mechanics have never worked on. Battery packs, inverters, and traction motors operate at 500 to 800 volts, requiring NFPA 70E certification, insulated tools, and personal protective equipment that can cost individual technicians thousands of dollars.²³ Best practice calls for a second technician to stand by with a non-conductive hook during high-voltage work in case of electrocution.

Manufacturer training is usually delivered once at delivery, is proprietary to each brand, and is not standardized. A report by the Electric School Bus Initiative called this model “costly and unscalable” and found that technicians in some districts are not permitted to perform advanced repairs at all, forcing buses to be shipped to manufacturer facilities “several states or counties away.”²⁴ The buses are also heavier than diesel equivalents, and some lack traditional frame rails, so districts have had to modify shop lifts and buy high-load-rated tires.²³ A national shortage of bus technicians compounds the problem. The private sector often pays 20 percent more than school districts, making it hard to recruit and keep workers with the skills electric buses require.

Vehicle-to-Grid Programs Have Underdelivered

Vehicle-to-grid technology allows parked buses to sell stored energy back to the grid and has been promoted as a way to offset high fleet costs. Results have been mixed. A study of a proposed 20-bus fleet in the NV Energy pilot in Nevada estimated net operational losses of roughly $6,300 per month during the summer, because recharging costs after grid discharge exceeded revenue. Districts in that program depend on up-front bonuses exceeding $130,000 per bus to make participation worthwhile.²⁵

A ConEdison pilot in White Plains, New York, concluded that bill credits from V2G “do not overcome costs of the hardware and software components” and that V2G buses had higher total cost of ownership than buses with standard chargers. A Green Mountain Power pilot in South Burlington, Vermont, ran at an overall financial loss, and the utility abandoned it because calculating incentives proved too burdensome administratively. In Wells-Ogunquit, Maine, a planned V2G project never launched after the district failed an interconnection screening and faced an estimated $35,000 utility study with no guarantee of approval.²⁶ V2G also accelerates battery degradation, cutting into the bus’s long-term value.¹⁸

Federal Funding Has Grown Uncertain

The EPA’s Clean School Bus Program, authorized at $5 billion over five years under the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, has been the main funding source for electric school bus adoption. By the end of 2024, the EPA had awarded roughly $2.8 billion to 1,344 school districts, with over 98 percent of funds going to electric buses. As of mid-2024, the program had funded more than 8,000 electric school buses.²⁷

Award distributions were temporarily paused in early 2025, and on February 19, 2026, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced a “revamp” of the program to align it with the president’s energy agenda. The EPA said it would not award funding under the most recent application round, $965 million opened in fall 2024, and would redirect those applicants to a restructured program that includes natural gas, biofuel, and hydrogen alongside electric options. Roughly $2.3 billion in authorized funding remained unspent. The infrastructure law requires at least 50 percent of Clean School Bus funding each fiscal year to go toward zero-emission buses, creating tension with the broader fuel menu.²⁸

The pause caused production delays. Blue Bird reportedly reprioritized manufacturing to focus on fully funded buses while delaying orders tied to uncertain federal money.²⁷ The budget reconciliation bill signed in July 2025 eliminated the 45W commercial clean-vehicle tax credit for buses acquired after September 30, 2025, and the 30C credit for charging infrastructure placed in service after June 30, 2026, removing two additional supports.²²

Where Electric Buses Have Worked

The picture is not uniformly negative. A Minnesota Pollution Control Agency pilot found electric buses achieved 60 percent higher overall efficiency than diesel and saved an average of $430 per month per bus in fuel costs, with 83 percent annual availability.²⁹ Districts in Michigan and Virginia reported that the low center of gravity from the battery pack improved winter traction, and in Montana, electric buses were the only vehicles that reliably started at temperatures as low as minus 44°F, because they lack the diesel exhaust fluid that gels in extreme cold.¹⁴

The successful deployments share common factors: urban or suburban settings with shorter routes, accessible charging infrastructure, early utility engagement, careful route planning with energy buffers, driver training on regenerative braking, and preconditioning while plugged in. Districts that treated electric buses as a straight swap for diesel, assigning them to long rural routes or expecting field-trip duty, ran into trouble faster.²⁹¹⁷

1
NBC Los Angeles. LAUSD Electric Bus Recall
2
The Brake Report. Blue Bird Recalls Electric School Buses
3
Transport Canada. Recall 2025209 – Blue Bird
4
NHTSA. NHTSA Recall Report 26V226
5
The Brake Report. Lion Electric Recalls School Buses for Parking Brake Issue
6
ABC7. LAUSD Electric Bus Goes Up in Flames in Lake View Terrace
7
Electrek. Lion Electric School Bus Warranties Voided Leaving Districts Stuck
8
Washington Free Beacon. School Districts Revert to Diesel Because Electric Buses Can’t Be Repaired
9
E&E News. Electric School Buses Hit Pothole After Major Supplier Goes Bankrupt
10
GovTech. Maine School Districts Find Issues With Lion Electric Buses
11
The Energy Mix. 3,400 Electric School Buses Going Idle as New Owners Renege on Warranties
12
NYSERDA. Routing and Range Requirements for Electric School Buses
13
Cornell University. Electric Buses Don’t Like the Cold, Study Finds
14
Electric School Bus Initiative. All About Operating Electric School Buses in Cold Weather
15
WIVB. Parents Raise Concerns Over Heat Issues in Electric School Buses in Lake Shore Central School District
16
Fox Business. New York Parents Say Kids Freeze on Mandated Electric School Buses During Brutal Winter Weather
17
School Transportation News. Electric School Buses Optimized Routing
18
Electric School Bus Initiative. All About Range and Reliability of Electric School Buses
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21
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School Bus Fleet. Electric Buses in the Shop: How to Be Prepared for EV Maintenance
24
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25
Resources for the Future. Vehicle-to-Grid Programs for Electric School Buses: Worth It?
26
Efficiency Maine. School Bus V2G Report
27
School Transportation News. Future of Clean School Bus Program
28
Inside Climate News. EPA Clean School Bus Revamp
29
Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Electric School Bus Pilot Project