No, we aren’t talking about the always popular, floor filling, line dance. Rather, the statement is in reference to the four new electric school buses that have become part of the Charlton County School District fleet.

At first glance the buses look like your regular, everyday, yellow school bus. Stepping aboard you are greeted by rows of the familiar high back, bench seats. Then the Bus Driver Stanley Sims turns the key. For a few seconds you hear a hissing sound as an air compressor powers up the pressurized braking system. Then, silence.

The only indication the bus is on is a green light icon on the dash. There is no sound of a rumbling motor or the typical smell of diesel. Easing on to the road for a short test ride, there is a low-level hum emanating from a noise generator that can be heard as long as the bus is traveling 20 miles per hour or less. “The noise generator is a national safety measure” explains Dustin Marshall, Regional Bus Sales Representative with Rush Bus Center, Charlton County’s bus vendor. “The buses are very quiet and can sneak up on you, so the noise generator makes you aware of the bus’s presence.” Once up to speed, and the air conditioner is turned off, all you hear is . . .nothing. Just the tires on the road.

For Charlton County School District’s Director of Transportation Jeff Highsmith, the chance to get the electric buses came at a time when the fleet was in need of upgrades. He says, “I heard about the national EV bus program from Clinch County Schools. It is a lottery grant program funded through the Environmental Protection Agency providing electric school buses and EV chargers free of charge to those counties/school districts selected, and rural communities were deemed a high priority. We asked for four buses in our grant proposal.”

“It really was a no-lose opportunity,” notes Charlton County Schools Superintendent Dr. Brent Tilley. “If we won the lottery, we received four buses free of charge. If we didn’t get selected, we would have moved forward with the fleet upgrades as budgeted. The benefit to winning was four buses using a clean, zero-emission fuel option and saving taxpayers a half million dollars.”

Highsmith worked with OREMC to string the line and provide power to the two EV chargers, each with dual-charging capability. All four buses can be charged at the same time and ready to roll out each morning. They began using the buses back in February. While they have a range of 120 miles, each of the four bus routes runs about half that. “The EV bus routes are all within the city limits of Folkston,” Highsmith says. “The students don’t really know the difference between buses, but our bus drivers like them and they drive the same as the diesel buses.”

What is different is there isn’t any oil or air filters to change. There isn’t a radiator, but there is a battery thermal management system to maintain optimal temperature. Fuel wise, Marshall says it costs about 22 cents per mile to run the EV buses versus 37 cents per mile for the diesel buses. It was also noted that when it is very hot or very cold, it does take more energy to operate the buses overall.

“I didn’t think the fuel costs would be less, but the whole program has to be viewed as a gift and a blessing, insists Tilley. “It was a novel idea, and the funds we are saving on transportation allow us to do other things, to make our dollars go further in educating our kids. That is our job at the end of the day.”