GreenPower Motor Co. Highlights its Zero-Emissions, Fully Electric Vehicles EV Star, the BEAST and AV Star

The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

GreenPower Motor Company GP — the designer, manufacturer and distributor of medium- and heavy-duty clean emissions all-electric vehicles (EVs) — took part in the Benzinga Small Cap Conference on April 22, 2021.

CEO and Chairman Fraser Atkinson spoke about the company’s focus on the EV Star platform. 

“When you look at it from a climate and clean energy point of view — things that are hot topics these days — 10% of all vehicles account for almost ⅔ of the air pollution,” Fraser said. “And those 10% are the medium and heavy-duty [vehicles].”

GreenPower has a suite of passenger vehicles along with models for the delivery, logistics and utility markets. EV Stars have the quickest sales cycle, and they’re built faster than any other vehicle in the company’s product suite.

The EV Star carries up to 19 passengers and the wider EV Star Plus transports up to 24 and accommodates paratransit. The passenger EV Star ADA has a curbside wheelchair lift compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). EV Star CC (cabin chassis), a white-label product, is being deployed with bodybuilders and upfitters to allow its purchasers to build on their own cab and chassis. Both the EV Star Cargo and EV Star Cargo Plus cube vans — with their rolling doors and lift gates — have a 2-ton payload.

“Concrete companies and others involved with sand, gravel and manufacturing all use Class A and higher heavy-duty equipment with diesel engines and tremendous emissions,” Fraser said. “Just imagining a world where we could ultimately change and convert those into vehicles that are zero-emissions is very compelling.”

GreenPower has a diversified early adoption with more than 140 deliveries and orders for over 200 units from a variety of customers and sectors. These include universities, airports, transit authorities and van pools that have purchased multiple units.

At the end of GreenPower’s 2020 fiscal year, the company successfully delivered 68 vehicles. Most of those were EV Stars, 4-battery electric school buses, and 2 40-foot low-floor transit vehicles. On March 23, 2021, the company announced a purchase order from Grant Transit Authority in Washington state for 4 EV Stars.

All of GreenPower’s vehicles are purpose-built, meaning they are created from the ground up to be battery-electric. The company’s automotive competitors use existing designs modified for electric use. Although GreenPower designs and manufactures its EVs in-house, it uses the best component manufacturers for traction motors, axels and specific battery cells used in its vehicles.

The EV Star is the only Class 4 electric vehicle that is both Altoona tested and Buy America compliant. It completed testing at the Altoona Bus Research and Testing Center in Pennsylvania, where it earned a 92.2, the 2nd-highest score ever attained across all vehicle types, both traditional combustion and EV. Fraser said GreenPower achieved Buy America compliance last fall.

Over one year ago, GreenPower identified the school bus market as an opportunity because of its significant health mitigation. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) exposure to NOx exhaust can trigger asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory issues. 

The existing school bus fleet is dominated by “older diesel-emitting buses that are incredibly harmful to the development of childrens’ lives,” Fraser said.

For this sector, GreenPower created the Battery Electric Automotive School Transportation (BEAST) model, a Type D electric school bus. The White House Infrastructure and Climate Plan is an initiative to replace 50,000 diesel transit vehicles and electrify 20% of the U.S. yellow school bus fleet through the EPA’s Clean Buses for Kids Program.

The BEAST seats up to 90 passengers, has a 194-kilowatt-hour battery that comes standard with an optional range of 150 miles, includes ABS disc brakes and air-ride suspension and has zero tailpipe emissions and noise pollution. President Joe Biden has pledged to convert 480,000 school buses by 2030.

“With the BEAST we’ve found a sweet spot with parents who have kindergarten- to elementary-aged kids,” Fraser said. “They are just so keen to see a change where the old diesel-emitting school buses that their school districts have to get changed over to zero-emissions school buses. A lot of demand is developing as a result of that.”

In addition to EV Star and the BEAST, GreenPower has announced the zero-emissions AV Star, the nation’s first fully autonomous electric vehicle that was developed in collaboration with Perrone Robotics.

For more information about GreenPower Motor Company visit greenpowermotor.com.

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.