Progress photo of the Chaffey High School Switch EV build.

Transitioning to cleaner vehicles and fuels continues to be a priority in the Inland Empire.

Adding Switch Electric Vehicles to area high school automotive programs has been one way to move this initiative forward and prepare the future workforce for the rapidly-changing automotive job market.

Over the summer, three San Bernardino County high schools brought the Switch EV curriculum to their classes thanks to a grant by the CA Energy Commission through Cerritos College’s ATL program. This electric vehicle kit allows students to engage in every aspect of electrical vehicle theory, construction, maintenance, and operation. In just four weeks, students at Etiwanda High School, Montclair High School and Chaffey High School built this full-size street legal EV as a classroom project. Read More →

Last fall the Cerritos Community College District’s Advanced Transportation Technology and Energy Center was awarded an additional $1.5 million to recruit additional high schools to participate in the Zero Emissions Vehicle High School Pilot Project funded by the California Energy Commission.

This program is designed to increase career awareness in the clean fuels transportation field for high school students in underserved communities, including regions impacted by poor air quality as well as those serving minority populations.

Each participating high school receives funding to purchase a Switch electric vehicle kit, which comes with curriculum for teachers to use in their classrooms. Teachers also attend a comprehensive train-the-trainer workshop to receive the instruction needed to help their students assemble the vehicle.

At the time of the augmentation, 28 high schools across California had already implemented the program on their campuses, and the project team was excited to reach out to more schools with the invitation. Word of this project had spread throughout the state among auto instructors and CTE coordinators, many of whom reached out to the ATL project team to find out if they could participate.

Over the course of the 2021-2022 school year, interested high school teachers worked with their district administrators to get permission, set up budgets and complete the contracting process which will enable them to offer this new curriculum to their students beginning fall 2022. Thanks to the generous augmentation by the CEC, Cerritos was able to fund an additional 24 schools for the coming school year, bringing the total number of participating high schools to 52.

Click here for the list of funded high schools.

Thanks to support from the California Energy Commission and the California Community Colleges Strong Workforce Program, Pittsburg High School in the Bay Area is one of the first — if not the first — high school in the state to train students on how to work with and repair fully-autonomous vehicles.

The school’s automotive program received two grants totaling more than $640,000 through a partnership with the Contra Costa Transportation Authority (CCTA). Read More →

Calexico High School auto students and faculty receive recognition award before campus closures.

When COVID-19 hit, several high schools that received funding from the California Energy Commission were close to finishing the Switch electric vehicle that they purchased with those funds.

Although students at these schools won’t get to finish the vehicle this year, they are making the best of the remote learning environment.

CEC and ATL representatives visited Calexico High School in February to present them with an award for receiving the Switch vehicle funding. Under the direction of instructor Keith Fisher, students did a presentation about the difference between electric and internal combustion engines and the need to transition to electric vehicles. Read More →