GreenPower’s newest plan for the second year of New Mexico’s electric-school-bus pilot no longer matches the model mix the state and company described when the program was laid out in 2025.123
GreenPower said Aug. 28 that it plans to begin the Type D phase next week with three standard BEAST buses. Two are supposed to rotate around New Mexico, while a third is planned to stay in West Las Vegas for the V2G portion of the 2026-27 school year.1
That is not the lineup New Mexico originally published.12 The New Mexico Economic Development Department said in September 2025 that year two would use two standard BEAST buses and one Mega BEAST.2 GreenPower was even more specific in its August 2025 contract announcement: it said the second-year V2G evaluation would use the Mega BEAST.3
The Aug. 28 announcement instead names a standard BEAST for that role.1 Comparing those public descriptions establishes a change in the announced model mix and in the bus named for the V2G portion. The reviewed materials do not establish why the Mega BEAST is absent from the new lineup or whether a formal contract amendment or separate state approval accompanied the change.123
The battery difference is large, but it is not the same thing as V2G output
GreenPower currently lists the standard BEAST with a 194-kWh nominal battery and up to 150 miles of range.4 The company lists the Mega BEAST with a 387-kWh battery and up to 300 miles of range, and markets the larger pack as providing more energy storage for V2G use.5
By simple arithmetic, 194 kWh is about 50.1% of 387 kWh. So the standard BEAST GreenPower now names for the West Las Vegas V2G portion has roughly half the nominal battery capacity of the Mega BEAST the company originally said would perform that evaluation.45
That comparison is meaningful, but it does not establish that the pilot’s usable V2G energy has been cut in half. Nominal pack capacity is not the same thing as exportable energy, and the current public materials reviewed for this story do not identify the bidirectional charger or inverter, export-power limit, utility interconnection, control software, test protocol, dispatch rules or usable exported energy for the West Las Vegas portion.123
GreenPower’s current release also describes deployment as beginning next week. It does not establish that the three BEASTs are already operating in year two or that the West Las Vegas bus is already exporting electricity.1
What the public record still does not explain
The most important unresolved question is straightforward: why did the publicly announced V2G bus change from the Mega BEAST to the standard BEAST?
The reviewed New Mexico and GreenPower materials do not answer that question.123 They also do not establish that New Mexico “downgraded” the project, cancelled the Mega BEAST, rejected it, or reduced a contracted V2G requirement. Those would require evidence about the governing contract, any amendments and the state’s current approval posture that is not present in the sources reviewed for this article.
For now, the defensible comparison is narrower: New Mexico’s published 2025 plan called for two BEASTs and one Mega BEAST in year two, GreenPower’s 2025 contract announcement named the Mega BEAST for V2G, and GreenPower’s Aug. 28, 2026 rollout announcement instead names three standard BEASTs with one standard BEAST assigned to the V2G portion.123
The next useful evidence will be the actual Type D deployment and any state or company record that explains the model substitution or discloses the V2G hardware and interconnection details.
Sources
Footnotes
-
“GreenPower Announces Deployment of Year Two of the New Mexico Pilot Project” — GreenPower Motor Company via Newsfile, Aug. 28, 2026. https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/311962/GreenPower-Announces-Deployment-of-Year-Two-of-the-New-Mexico-Pilot-Project. Establishes GreenPower’s current three-BEAST plan, planned deployment timing and West Las Vegas V2G assignment. Company-issued source; does not establish actual deployment, formal state contract amendment, V2G topology or operating performance. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9
-
“All-electric school bus pilot ready to roll in New Mexico” — New Mexico Economic Development Department, Sept. 29, 2025. https://edd.newmexico.gov/press-releases/all-electric-school-bus-pilot-ready-to-roll-in-new-mexico/. Establishes the state’s original public year-two lineup of two BEAST buses plus one Mega BEAST. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7
-
“GreenPower Signs Contract for More Than $5 Million with State of New Mexico for All-Electric School Bus Pilot Program” — GreenPower Motor Company, Aug. 4, 2025. https://greenpowermotor.com/greenpower-contract-5-million-state-of-new-mexico-electric-school-bus-pilot-program/. Establishes GreenPower’s original description of the second-year program and its explicit statement that the V2G evaluation would use the Mega BEAST. Company-issued description of contract scope; does not establish later amendments. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6
-
“BEAST School Bus” — GreenPower Motor Company product page, observed Aug. 28, 2026. https://greenpowermotor.com/gp-products/BEAST-school-bus/. Manufacturer-listed specification source for the standard BEAST’s 194-kWh nominal battery and up-to-150-mile range. ↩ ↩2
-
“Mega BEAST” — GreenPower Motor Company product page, observed Aug. 28, 2026. https://greenpowermotor.com/gp-products/mega-beast-school-bus/. Manufacturer-listed specification source for the Mega BEAST’s 387-kWh battery, up-to-300-mile range and GreenPower’s V2G-storage positioning. ↩ ↩2