SFMTA Rolls Out Battery Electric Bus Pilot Program

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) announced the first of three battery-electric buses have entered revenue service.

This milestone is part of the agency’s goal of an all-electric fleet and a carbon-neutral San Francisco by 2040, as explained in the SFMTA’s Sustainability and Climate Action Program.  

As part  of  the program, Muni had initially ordered nine  battery-electric  buses, three each fro m three manufacturers,  New Flyer, BYD USA, and Proterra,  for an  18-month  tryout.

As the program evolved, a fourth manufacturer, Nova Bus,  was added to the program to bring in three additional e-buses for the testing.  Currently five e-buses have arrived. The rest of seven  will  be delivered by the end of 2022.   

The new coaches will be serving the 9 San Bruno, 22 Fillmore, 29 Sunset and 44 O'Shaughnessy lines. The three battery-electric buses will be running on the same line each day to gather data on how they respond to the challenges of revenue service.

Leading up to this launch, the SFMTA has been working with PG&E  to complete and update the charging infrastructure, called  ChargePoint Express Plus,  needed to power its new  battery electric  fleet.

Each bus takes about four hours to charge and the electrical support equipment is enclosed within the Electrical Equipment Center directly adjacent to the charging stations.  To date,  the agencys has nine of 12 charging stations completed, which are powered by Hetch Hetchy Power. 

The three remaining chargers are currently in fabrication and anticipated to be delivered in Spring 2022. Construction will continue once the three chargers arrive. The overall completion of the installation project is expected for summer 2022.       

As of 2019, 47% of San Francisco’s greenhouse gas emissions are generated by the transportation sector which is heavily reliant on carbon intensive fossil fuels.