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The City of Regina says it’s successfully added 20 battery-electric buses to its fleet.
But Mayor Chad Bachynski says the price tag will have to come down before the city can afford to buy any more.
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In 2024, Regina took advantage of $26 million in federal funding to place the order for 20 electric buses from Nova Bus.
Seven of them were delivered in 2025 and have now completed their first year of operation. In a news release, the city says it has saved more than $250,000 in fuel costs.
All 20 are now in operation, making up 16 per cent of Regina Transit’s 123-bus fleet.
“The feedback that we’ve seen from the from the performance side of things, is they’ve performed well, they’ve performed on par with our with our diesel counterparts,” Bachynski said in an interview.
“It really kind of hit the mark in terms of what we were looking for, recognizing that we were able to purchase those particular buses for a comparable price at the time for what our diesel buses were going for.”
As for winter performance, the city says their range was around 220 km, compared to an average of 340 km between charges.
“So about a 30 per cent decrease in the tougher months of winter, but still more than capable to be able to keep up with routes within the city limits that they drive in,” Bachynski said.
“When we look at what is the objective, or the outcome we’re trying to achieve, it should move people around efficiently, effectively through the city. The benefit of these buses is that, because they’re able to achieve that goal, they do so at a lower cost.”
He did say there was one instance of one of the new buses having its battery drained because its diesel heater hadn’t been hooked up.
While Bachynski would be in favour from a technical and operational standpoint to committing to buying more electric buses, cost is the prohibitive factor, which is why the city’s most recent bus purchase agreement is for hybrid models.
“The cost in the market was significantly higher than what we saw when we purchased this first batch of buses,” he explained. “And, on top of that, we don’t have the subsidy from the federal government to make any headway to close the gap as well.
“So between the escalated cost at the time when we had to make that decision, and the lack of subsidy from the federal government, we had to make an economical decision at that point. Because we still need to keep reliable buses on the roads.”
He’s hopeful that the cost will come down as the technology advances in the future, especially with the rising cost of fuel.
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