Check out what Kentucky School Districts are saying about their propane powered school buses.
Good news — two tax credits that affect propane autogas fleets have been extended! The Alternative Fuel Excise Credit and Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Tax Credit have been retroactively extended through December 31, 2017 — a year past their original expiration of December 21, 2016.
President Donald Trump has signed into law the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, a long-term budget agreement that includes extensions of lapsed tax credits for alternative fuel vehicles and refueling infrastructure retroactively for 2017.
Environmental stewardship is taken very seriously at Nestlé Waters North America. To reduce its carbon footprint, the third largest non-alcoholic beverage company by volume in the U.S. is working to continue improving its recycling rates across North America. There is also a strong and ongoing commitment at the company to water stewardship and responsible packaging.
Longtime NASCAR car owner Jack Roush will be honored next week by the North Carolina Motorsports Association. Roush, the winningest car owner in NASCAR history, will perceive the prestigious Achievement in Motorsports Tribute Award, presented annual by the NMPA, at its 12th annual ceremony on Tuesday.
One Midwestern city is taking an eye-catching, rotationally molded approach to boost recycling — and is capturing more plastic caps in the process. Mix nostalgic kitsch with environmentalism and you have what locals are calling Cap-etition. Valparaiso, Ind.’s city Public Works Department is teaming up with schools in the city to collect used plastic caps, which often get separated from bottles and end up in the trash.
Township High School District 211 in Illinois recently announced it will add 15 propane-fueled 71-passenger buses to its fleet, following the Board of Education’s approval of a bid, which also included the purchase of 15 smaller gasoline-fueled 30-passenger buses. The new buses will replace buses ranging from 13 to 15 years old.
When discussing propane vs. diesel vehicles, the concern I hear about diesel is “Too cold, won’t work, paying to warm up.”
Increase Sales with Facility Tours
Now in its third year, our Tour Support Program has become an effective way to help you sell buses. In 2017, we had a 73 percent close rate!
A facility tour at ROUSH CleanTech headquarters in Livonia, Michigan, is a great resource to raise customers’ awareness or to educate your employees. Depending on your goals, we can customize the tour’s content to focus on propane, CNG or gasoline school bus sales, technical service or general education. For instance, we recently had Girardin Ontario bring in a group of customers interested in gasoline buses to learn more about that fuel option and the Ford powertrain. Because of this interest, we also took the group to the Ford Windsor engine plant before coming to ROUSH.
A typical tour itinerary includes:
- Afternoon arrival of dealer personnel and customers
- Dinner hosted by ROUSH CleanTech and Blue Bird
- Morning tour of the ROUSH CleanTech manufacturing facility, product overview and service presentations
- Break for lunch provided by ROUSH CleanTech and Blue Bird
- Afternoon demonstration of propane autogas fueling, tour of ROUSH Performance, and a tour of the ROUSH Automotive Collection museum, featuring Jack Roush’s personal collection of cars
- Afternoon departure
We want to provide an equal opportunity for all dealers, regardless of location, to visit our factory. To help cover the cost of this tour, we’ll pay a portion of your and your customer’s expenses based on where you’re coming from. Check out the map online here to determine how much we will cover, per person, for visits from your state.
To qualify for the reimbursement program, the following criteria must be met:
- Customer attendees must be current or prospective customers who plan to purchase in the next 12 months.
- Maximum group size is 30 people.
- Background information, including attendees’ names, titles, district and contact information, must be provided to ROUSH CleanTech in advance of the tour.
- At least one dealer representative is required to attend.
Whether you’ve taken this tour before with your staff or a customer, or this is your first time, you’re sure to learn something new, and, more importantly, to increase your odds to close sales.
Our calendar is starting to fill up! To schedule a tour through our Tour Support Program, call us at 800.59.ROUSH or contact your ROUSH CleanTech rep today.
Volkswagen Update: January 2018
This year, we hope to see continued momentum with the Environmental Mitigation Trust, and possibly see some funds dispersed. Almost all the state beneficiaries have been selected, so you should know who to contact. We still need you to reach out to your state’s beneficiary to schedule meetings and learn what your state plans to do with the money.
There is still time to make the case for propane school buses. You can find out your state’s status on the VW Settlement Clearinghouse website. Many state plans are already being published.
If you have not reached out to your state’s beneficiary to discuss propane school buses or need additional help in doing so, please contact Chelsea Jenkins at Chelsea.Jenkins@roush.com. She can work with you to develop an outreach plan.
We’ve also created some tools that you can to use to “speak the language” of the beneficiary in your outreach. This one-page flyer, attached here, can be tailored to your state. The main message of this document is that in a dollar-for-dollar comparison to reduce NOx:
- Propane is 35 percent more cost-effective than diesel school buses.
- Propane is 65 percent more cost-effective than electric school buses.
And, we created a short video entitled Knock Out NOx to easily explain the importance of removing NOx in school transportation. You can use this video as a part of a presentation, or add the link to your email correspondence.
Let’s not lose sight of the potential funding from the $2.9 billion trust that could go toward purchasing our low-NOx propane school buses.
If you have any questions about the Volkswagen settlement or the Environmental Mitigation Trust, please contact Chelsea Jenkins at Chelsea.Jenkins@roush.com. You can also visit ROUSHcleantech.com/volkswagen-settlement for regularly updated information.
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