The WorkTruckWeek® show, an exhibition of fleet vehicles and related technologies held March 4-7 in Indianapolis, highlighted the recent entry of Blue Bird, a U.S. school bus manufacturer, as a new player in the fleet-vehicle chassis market, along with a newly added propane option for fueling route trucks.
“We’ve been building school buses for almost 100 years, and been real successful at it,” said Andy Moore, director, commercial chassis for Blue Bird Corp., Macon, GA. “We build our own chassis in-house from the ground up and as we’ve started looking at ways to expand our business, we thought that getting into the commercial chassis market would be something to leverage our experience.”
The company’s move to diversify into commercial chassis was announced in a Feb. 27 news release, followed by a formal rollout during the four-day show at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis.
Blue Bird Corp. manufactures both chassis and bodies for its vehicles at its plant in Ft. Valley, GA. The company offers electric zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) to its school, municipal and private bus customers, as well as buses powered by propane and gasoline. While not emission-free, propane, a petroleum derivative related to compressed natural gas (CNG), is “ultra-low NOx.” It’s regularly used to power buses or commercial vehicles, said Chelsea Uphaus, director of marketing for ROUSH CleanTech, Livonia, MI. Uphaus’s company partners with Blue Bird on fitting their chassis with either electric or propane-fuel technology, she said. A propane-powered truck can drive 150-200 miles per tankful, she adds, noting that fill-ups are comparable to gasoline-powered trucks. Even better, propane currently sells for as little as $1.87 per gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Administration. That’s less than the $3.25 per gallon average price for gasoline nationwide, according to the U.S. Energy Administration. Average costs in states such as California run as high as $4.70 per gallon, the agency says. “It’s readily available,” Uphaus said of propane, adding that, “We’ve got over 20,000 propane school buses all over the country and in Canada.”
Unlike electric vehicles, propane has little, if any, problem operating in cold weather, Uphaus says. She and Moore showed a Textile Services Weekly correspondent a chassis fitted with a propane tank and the pipes and valves needed to run a truck on this fuel.
In addition, Blue Bird is partnering with TRSA members Morgan Olson Corp., Sturgis, MI; and Xos Inc., Los Angeles, to provide truck bodies for Blue Bird’s electric and propane-powered chassis lines. Speaking from the show floor, Mike Ownbey, Morgan Olson president and CEO, said his company is proud of its collaboration with Blue Bird and is eager to provide more options for fleet managers that work for linen, uniform and facility services operators.
In a brief visit to the Morgan Olson booth at the WorkTruckWeek show, Director of Marketing and Communications Kenn Klein gave this correspondent a preview of the company’s Clean Show exhibit with a look at its patented “Sidewall Stiffeners.” These metal racks screw into the side of a route truck wall with a single bolt and are easily moved to accommodate loads of garments or flatwork items, Klein said.
Klein also expressed congratulations to U.S. Linen & Uniform, Richland, WA, which recently earned kudos at TRSA’s Feb. 5 Industry Awards Dinner with “Truck of the Year” honors based on the design of its truck body provided by Morgan Olson. The launderer’s body supplier also nominated U.S. Linen for the award.
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