Phoenix Motor Inc.’s PhoenixEV delivered five 40-foot ZX5 battery electric buses in May 2024 for the University of California, Irvine (UCI).

UCI has had an electric fleet since January 2018 and is the first university in the nation to go all electric. Since then, UCI has added 25 buses to their fleet, and logged 1,183,210 miles.

Also, their ridership for the 23-24 academic year was 1,464,378 while annually hitting 184,938 miles and averaging 3,555 miles weekly.

UCI’s ZEBs

The buses are charged using UCI’s state-of-the-art microgrid, which consists of an internal utility tunnel loop connected to the local utility via an on-campus substation.

The internal utility loop spans around the campus and connects the community of over 30,000 people to various distributed energy resources, including charging stations for each of the new Anteater Express buses.

Also, charging their fleet costs only $0.37 per mile compared to the $1.53 per mile they could be spending with diesel.

“PhoenixEV is proud of our partnership with UCI,” says Denton Peng CEO of PhoenixEV. “UCI is a forward-thinking university dedicated to sustainable transportation for their students and community, and we are delighted to be a strategic electric bus partner with UC Irvine.”

UCI’s Zero Emissions Goal

The partnership marks a significant step forward for both PhoenixEV and UCI.

PhoenixEV continues its expansion into the educational market, while UCI continues to lead in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by committing to ensuring that at least 50% of fleet acquisitions are zero or low emission vehicles.