Blue Bird expands into commercial vehicle market

Blue Bird Corporation, which is known in the industry for electric and low-emission school buses, brought something different to the recent ACT Expo: its latest zero- and low-emission commercial vehicle platforms. The company showed both its electric step van and propane-powered stripped chassis at the April industry event in Anaheim, Calif.

On the company’s decision to expand from school buses to commercial vehicles, Andy Moore, director of commercial chassis at Blue Bird, told Power Progress, “We’ve been building our own chassis since 1952 for our buses, and we knew that we could bring that expertise to the commercial market.”

Electric Step Van

Based on its Class 5-6 stripped chassis, Blue Bird’s electric-powered step van has a 178-in. wheelbase for last-mile delivery vehicles having a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of up to 23,000 lb.

Blue Bird’s electric step van as seen at ACT Expo. (Photo: Becky Schultz)

“If you compare a school bus route duty cycle to a step van delivery route, there are a lot of similarities,” Moore said. “Whether they’re picking up students [or] picking up or dropping off parcels.”

He added that the mileage as well as the useful life of the vehicles is similar, as well.

The step van’s Lithium-ion batteries, which support a vehicle range of up to 130 miles on a single charge, are mounted inside the vehicle’s frame rails.

“With our background in school buses, safety is always at the forefront of what we do,” Moore said. “And that wasn’t going to change just because the cargo the vehicles are [carrying] will. The battery placement was chosen because it’s the best place to protect the batteries in case there is a collision or an accident.”

Blue Bird said that to enhance driver protection and familiarity, it offers several features on its electric-powered step van that are not standard on comparable electric vehicles. These include hill hold, which prevents the vehicle from rolling when sitting stationary on a hill.

Additionally, electric creep simulates an internal combustion (IC) engine in gear by allowing the vehicle to slowly start moving from a stop when the driver removes their foot from the brake pedal.

“With professional drivers, if they’re jumping between an ICE-powered vehicle one day and a battery-electric (BE) vehicle the next day, we want to make sure that it’s a seamless experience,” Moore said. “With the creep mode, most internal combustion engines — you let your foot off the brake, and it starts slowly moving forward. The same thing happens on our EV.”

Finally, a 55º wheel cut improves maneuverability in tight urban settings.

“We got a lot of feedback from customers that several fleets, part of their policy is that the drivers cannot put the vehicle in reverse,” Moore said, adding that most accidents for commercial vehicle fleets occur when the vehicle is backing up. “That 55º wheel cut helps with turning radius so that they can maneuver a lot more efficiently in tight routes, whether that’s in a cul-de-sac in a neighborhood or on inner-city, tight urban roads.”

Depending on the charging infrastructure, recharging the electric step van takes between one and 12 hours.

Propane-Powered Chassis

Blue Bird also exhibited its Class 5-6 propane-powered stripped chassis. Based on a 208-in. wheelbase and designed for medium- to long-range delivery vehicles with a GVWR of up to 23,000 pounds, the chassis offers an OEM-installed propane powertrain featuring Ford’s 7.3L V8 engine — something Blue Bird called an industry first.

Blue Bird’s propane-powered stripped chassis. (Photo: Blue Bird)

Moore said that by supplying a chassis complete with a propane-fueled powertrain, commercial fleets can avoid upfitting a spark-ignited engine.

“We’re essentially eliminating that upfitting process, eliminating the middleman there, and building it from day one as a propane vehicle,” he said. “It saves the customer time. It saves them money. There are no wasted parts. And they also know that since it’s an OEM-built product, they’re dealing with an OEM — they’ve got the confidence that it’s backed by an OEM.”

In developing the propane-powered stripped chassis, Blue Bird built on its long-standing collaboration with Ford Motor Company and Roush CleanTech.

“Since 2008, we’ve been integrating our propane technology into Ford commercial vehicles and have sold a ton of fleets across North America,” said Todd Mouw, executive vice president of sales, marketing and customer success at Roush CleanTech. “So, we have a lot of experience in regard to what those fleets are looking for.”

Roush, which has accumulated over three billion miles across thousands of fleets with its propane technology, integrated Ford’s 335 hp engine into a low-emission powertrain option for Blue Bird’s propane-powered commercial vehicle platform.

Mouw said the broad use of the 7.3L V8 engine in Class 2-7 commercial vehicles as well as long-term availability of parts all figured into the decision to use the engine in Blue Bird’s propane-fueled stripped chassis.

“Ford spends billions of dollars developing a really good engine — power, performance, emissions,” he added. “Then adapting all the benefits to propane to it — further emissions reduction — obviously the total cost of ownership (TCO) piece, which is really significant with a mass-production engine, putting it in a chassis that Blue Bird’s been manufacturing on the school bus side for years, it’s just a perfect marriage.”

Blue Bird’s Andy Moore speaks during a press conference about the company’s commercial chassis at ACT Expo 2025. (Photo: Becky Schultz)

Blue Bird said the propane-powered stripped chassis utilizes lightweight materials and components to maximize fuel efficiency and vehicle payload while continuing to prioritize vehicle safety. As with the electric step van, the chassis also features a 55º wheel cut.

Commercial vehicle fleet operators using Blue Bird’s electric- and propane-powered step vans stand to benefit from energy and maintenance cost savings compared to diesel vehicles, the company said.

Blue Bird anticipates its electric-powered stripped chassis to be commercially available in the first quarter of 2026, with the propane-powered stripped chassis to follow in the first quarter of 2026. In anticipation, Moore said Blue Bird’s engineering teams are finalizing testing, while operationally the company is tooling up for the manufacturing process.

“We have been talking to some key target customers as we launch this,” he said. “We know they’re excited about the product coming to market. There’s a lot of interest in it — both EV and propane.”