Business View Magazine - Dec 2023

obstacles. “So, we found that on the coldest days here, the [electric] buses only get about 100 hundred miles of range, and they need to have about 200-300 miles of range to operate the entire day,” Barth explains. With an average charge time of six hours, relying solely on electricity isn’t the best option; therefore, the agency has devised a brilliant alternative that still complies with the California zero-emission mandate. It has decided to purchase buses powered by hydrogen, as the engine technology is still zero- emission and does not suffer the same range limits that electric buses do. Currently, the agency is planning the fueling infrastructure for the buses and will be purchasing its first three buses in the near future. Luckily, since these types of buses have been used widely by other transit systems, it’s proven 321 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 12 STANISLAUS REGIONAL TRANSI T AUTHORI T Y