Biden awards $80 million to Blue Bird to boost electric school bus manufacturing in Georgia

The Biden administration awarded $80 million to Blue Bird Body Co. to convert a Fort Valley, Georgia site previously used to make diesel-powered motor homes to produce electric school buses.
The bus shown above is one of Blue Bird's 1,500 electric buses on the road today. (Marlon Hyde/WABE)

Updated at 5:56 p.m.

The Biden administration is awarding nearly $2 billion in grants to General Motors, Stellantis and other carmakers to help restart or expand electric vehicle manufacturing and assembly sites in eight states, including the presidential battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia.

The Energy Department will issue grants totaling $1.7 billion to create or retain thousands of union jobs and support auto-based communities that have long driven the U.S. economy, the White House said Thursday. Besides the three battleground states, grants also will go to EV facilities in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland and Virginia.