By Bill Grady

Published by 98.1 KMBZ FM: Read the article.

September 11, 2019

Kansas City, MO – The Kansas City Area Transit Authority will have two zero-emissions electric buses in its fleet in the summer of 2020.

RideKC held a show-and-tell session on Tuesday to give people a look at the new vehicle, built by GILLIG Corporation.

“(The buses) are manufactured in Livermore, California, and it’s manufactured by the same men and women in our factory that build the current KCATA buses, so we’re very, very proud of that,” said Joe Policarpio, Vice President of Sales at GILLIG.

The vehicles can run about 150 miles between charges, and they should have no trouble keeping up with regular city traffic.

“Electric motors have higher torque,” Policarpio said. “In fact, we’ve got to control that excelleration a little bit, because we don’t want it to be too fast of an excelleration.”

The whisper-quiet buses cost about $800,000 each, which is much more than a standard bus that runs on diesel fuel. Much of the additional outlay will be covered by lower maintenance and fuel costs, said Robbie Mackinen, KCATA president.