Blue Bird, the iconic American school bus manufacturer and one of the largest electric school bus makers, has announced an all-electric medium duty Class 5-6 truck chassis.
You may know Blue Bird from their ubiquitous school buses, many of which are now electric. But now for the first time since the company started building its own chassis in 1952 (minus a few small projects here and there), Blue Bird is making a serious effort to move out to other types of vehicles.
It’s starting off in what has become a relatively popular place to start: a class 5-6 step van. This is a pretty crowded space at this point, with a lot of established manufacturers and startups alike showing off electric versions of the big (or, well, medium-sized) box on wheels.
Blue Bird, however, thinks that it can leverage the history it has as a respected manufacturer to offer a solid product in this space.
We had a quick chat with Blue Bird at ACT Expo, America’s largest commercial EV show, last week where it was primarily showcasing this vehicle. It’s also making a propane version of the truck… but, well, we at Electrek don’t care about fossil-powered vehicles so let’s move on from that.
Blue Bird’s 23,000lb GVWR electric step van has a 140kWh battery, good for “up to 130 miles” of range, though as always this is highly dependent on load, route, etc. Unlike Blue Bird’s NMC-battery school buses, the step van uses an LFP battery (I’m a big fan of these, and think we need more of them, given their durability and cost benefits).
Most of these types of vehicles are used as bakery trucks, flower deliveries, food trucks and so on, so 130 miles can be enough for a lot of these applications given that they tend to stay focused on the same routes/cities.
But if that’s not enough, the truck does have quick charge capability, and Blue Bird says it can charge up in about an hour on a DC charger (an AC charge will take 12 hours, though).
Blue Bird thinks it can leverage its long manufacturing experience to offer a better product than many others in the market. For example, it wants to offer safety and convenience features that you might not see as standard features on every other step van out there, like hill hold and an electric creep.
And it has a best-in-class 55º wheel cut, allowing much tighter turns than you’d expect out of a vehicle with a 178 inch wheelbase.
Tighter turns are a big deal for fleets, because backing up is where most accidents happen. Many fleets instruct their drivers never to back up for this reason, so this will make the lives of drivers easier.
Blue Bird plans to ship its electric step van in Q1 of 2026.
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