Here's when Regina could have electric buses as part of its transit fleet

Up to 53 battery-electric buses could become part of Regina’s transit fleet with seven expected to be delivered next year.

The city’s director of transit and fleet Brad Bells said the buses will be the first battery-electric ones in the city.

“The addition of these electric buses will support the City of Regina’s goal of becoming a 100 per cent renewable city by 2050 and is in line with our Energy and Sustainability Framework,” Bells said in a Nova Bus news release.

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The company says its vehicle, known as the LFSe+ long-range electric bus improves air quality by eliminating all emission of pollutants and greenhouse gases.

According to Nathan Luhning, the city’s manager of transit administration, an electric bus can travel 340 kilometres before running out of battery power.

In 2023 Luhning said that charging electric buses would be done entirely within garages and no new infrastructure dedicated to charging purposes would be built on roadways.

“We strongly believe transit agencies and cities such as Regina are paving the way for the success of this important transition to clean transportation, which will support our collective efforts to reduce GHG emissions,” Nova Bus’s president Ralph Acs said in the release.

In March 2023, the City of Regina announced that it would be getting over $26 million from Ottawa to help front the cost of transitioning public transit to electrified vehicles.

Half of the funding was intended to pay for the electric buses and the other half will cover the costs of infrastructure upgrades that would be needed.

Currently, Regina transit’s bus fleet sits at 123.

The city’s goal is to have all of its buses transitioned to electric by 2039.

In 2023, a diesel bus cost about $700,000, the price tag for an electric bus is roughly $1.3 million.

Regina’s Mayor Sandra Masters said last year that the increased price tag was worth it because of long term cost savings.

“Any time you’re looking to invest in something that over the course of a lifetime of assets is going to save massive amounts of money in fuel costs into the future to be able to cover 50 per cent of that cost into any project, is enormously significant,” Masters said.

Besides a reduction in noise, Luhning said that residents shouldn’t notice too much of a difference when riding the news buses.

-- With files from Allison Bamford.