15 new battery-electric buses begin arriving for Whistler's public transit system
Just over a decade after Whistler retired its hydrogen-powered transit buses, a new generation of zero-emission vehicles is set to make up a significant share — roughly half — of its local fleet.
BC Transit has allocated 15 new 40-ft-long battery-electric buses to Whistler as part of its initial province-wide order of 125 vehicles, which is gradually being delivered.
The first bus arrived in Whistler this week, with a total of four expected to arrive by the end of October 2026. The remaining 11 are expected in Spring 2027.
The first vehicles will be used for staff training before entering passenger service later in 2026.
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Built by Canadian manufacturers New Flyer and Nova Bus, the 125 buses are destined for eight provincially-operated public transit systems: Kamloops, Kelowna, Nanaimo, Nelson, Powell River, the Sunshine Coast, Greater Victoria, and Whistler. The first 10 buses from this order entered service in Greater Victoria in Spring 2025.
Jointly funded by federal, provincial, municipal, and regional governments, the project has a total cost of about $424 million. This covers the buses, charging infrastructure, and the construction or modification of operations and maintenance facilities to accommodate battery-electric vehicles.
At a later time, battery-electric buses are also expected to eventually join BC Transit’s fleets in the Fraser Valley.
New battery-electric buses operating in Greater Victoria. (BC Transit)
Currently, BC Transit has a province-wide bus fleet of about 1,200 vehicles, including over 30 buses dedicated to the Whistler public transit system, which has about a dozen routes.
Whistler’s previous experience with a large zero-emission bus fleet was short-lived. BC Transit introduced 20 hydrogen-powered buses in Whistler at a cost of $90 million in time for the 2010 Winter Olympics. However, they were withdrawn in 2014 and replaced with conventional diesel buses due to high operating costs, driven largely by the lack of a local hydrogen supply.
Separately, TransLink plans to gradually transition Metro Vancouver’s bus fleet to zero-emission, battery-electric vehicles. This includes building the infrastructure needed to support them, with construction progressing on the new Marpole Transit Centre bus depot along South Vancouver’s industrial waterfront on the Fraser River, next to the SkyTrain Canada Line’s North Arm Bridge.
Scheduled to open in 2028, the $848-million Marpole Transit Centre will occupy an 18-acre site and have the capacity to store, charge, and maintain about 340 battery-electric buses.
Before the end of this year, TransLink is also expected to introduce its very first new-generation, 40-ft-long, three-door trolley bus, which will have the significantly expanded capability of operating off-wire for 20 km with its larger battery. TransLink has ordered a total of 275 trolley buses from European manufacturer Solaris to completely replace its aging trolley fleet, with the entire order expected to arrive before the end of this decade.
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- Cost to build TransLink's first new battery bus depot in Vancouver grows to $848 million
- TransLink estimates $6.5 billion cost for new bus depots for battery buses and service expansion
- TransLink's first European-made next-generation trolley bus to enter service in September
- First look inside TransLink's new four-door articulated trolley buses built in Europe