About nine years ago Tulare County officials were excited to announce that Canada-based GreenPower Motors would open a California electric bus manufacturing plant in Porterville bringing potentially hundreds of jobs to the area.
Fast forward to late February 2025 and you can mark the end of that dream as the publicly-traded company announced some news on their quarterly conference call.
“On the West Coast, GreenPower finalized plans to expand its California manufacturing footprint in one facility located in the Inland Empire. “Consolidating our operations from three separate locations and five different facilities spread out through California to one larger facility will allow for more cost savings and increased efficiency,” Riley stated.”
The consolidated site is in Riverside.So Porterville will close.
GreenPower’s assembly facility in Porterville is located at 90 West Poplar.They lease the facility after promising to build and own a state of the art manufacturing plant years ago but never following through.In 2017 they announced “GreenPower owns 9.3 acres of land across from the Porterville Municipal Airport. The Company is in the process of constructing a two-story office building and a manufacturing facility comprising a total of 144,000 square feet.” They never closed on the land purchase.
A 2016 editorial in the local paper welcomed the company to Porterville and laid out a rosy scenario.
“City officials said the company will employ as many as 60 workers at the start, but could grow to more than 1,000 employees. The jobs are factory jobs with good pay and benefits.
City manager John “Lollis said the company plans to grow in phases with more than $10 million being invested locally over the next two years.”
Instead of expanding in Porterville, the company has opted multiple times to build manufacturing plants in other parts of the country, including West Virginia and in Charleston. One report says the company had 116 employees as of March 2024, company wide. The number that works in Porterville is thought to be around 20.
The firm has faced financial problems in recent years, dependent on key components of their buses and vans supplied from China now in an active trade war with the United States facing tariffs.
Yet another problem: the Trump administration is no fan of subsidies for electric vehicles which is a key factor in GreenPower’s business strategy.
Still over the years GreenPower has sold electric school buses and vans to a number of California school districts, municipalities and airports including in Porterville, in Cutler Orosi,Terra Bella and recently to Los Banos.
As of April, GreenPower Motors has problems with its listing on the NASDAQ stock exchange with its stock today down to $0.42, well below the one dollar threshold needed to keep their NASDAQ market listing.
The company announced “Pursuant to the Nasdaq Rules, the Company announces that is has received a notification letter from Nasdaq on April 1, 2025, citing non-compliance with Listing Rule 5620(a) for failing to hold its annual general meeting of shareholders within twelve months of the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024. The Company anticipates that it will regain compliance by holding its annual general meeting on May 23, 2025.”