Survey finds that majority of US parents favor electric school buses

Federal support for the clean-energy transition may be in question during a second Trump administration, but a new survey underscores broad support for electrification among one key group of stakeholders: parents.

Highland Electric Fleets, which started in 2019 and provides electrification services to school districts and other fleet operators, commissioned the survey, which “found that 65% of US parents would prefer their child ride on an electric school bus than a diesel-powered one,” per a news release.

“The vast majority of parents and community members do believe that this is better, this is going to be better for their kids, they’ve got a better shot of avoiding pediatric asthma. There’s a strong preference for this technology,” Duncan McIntyre, Highland’s founder and CEO, told Tech Brew of the survey’s main takeaways. “That was pretty profound to see, because we get pushback at school board meetings all the time from people who are still learning.”

The survey data comes from a sample of 1,000 parents with children between the ages of 5 and 17 who have ridden the bus to school in the past, currently do, or plan to.

• 89% of parents think electric school buses would improve their child’s air quality.
• 70% believe switching to electric buses would reduce cases of respiratory illnesses like pediatric asthma.
• 63% think their child would be happier.
• 68% believe it would improve their child’s physical health.
• And 16% ranked electric buses as their top choice of infrastructure investment by their child’s school district, besting field trips, pay raises for administrators, building improvements, and athletic facilities.

Mass transit: Currently, about 2.5% of the US school bus fleet––which includes more than 500,000 buses and serves some 20 million students––has committed to going electric.

Progress on that front has been made in the last several years, supported in part by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Program. That initiative allocated $5 billion through 2026 to help electrify school buses.

Still, school districts face tricky financial propositions when they’re making decisions about electrification, McIntyre acknowledged. Grant programs like the EPA’s help, he said, but he insisted that districts can make it work even without federal support, especially now that the industry has had a chance to scale up.

“We started this company during the first Trump administration, and didn’t expect any support at all from the federal government. Our first couple projects were done unsubsidized,” McIntyre said. “From our perspective, grants can help lower the cost, but they are not a silver bullet. It’s about integrating all sorts of values into the project, and thinking about it long-term and holistically.”

For example, he noted factors like savings on fuel and maintenance costs, and opportunities for school bus fleets to sell electricity back to the grid.

“The need for a grant is less acute if you have lots of other values stacking up against each other. We’ve been running vehicle-to-grid in a live vehicle-to-grid setting for almost four years now,” McIntyre said. “Some of these buses have more significant income streams than I think anyone expects.”

The survey found that out of the 35% of parents who were more hesitant about electrification, cost was a major factor. But a third of those respondents suggested they’d be open to electric buses if the switch delivered savings.

Ultimately, parental support for electrification came down to their children’s health.

“As this survey underscores, parents increasingly recognize that electric school buses are not just a transportation upgrade––they’re a commitment to their children’s health and well-being,” Sue Gander, director of the World Resources Institute’s Electric School Bus Initiative, said in a statement.