Electric vehicles being used for driver’s ed at Peoria Public Schools

PEORIA (25News Now) - Driver’s ed is going electric at Peoria Public Schools.

Director of Transportation Josh Collins says the district received grant money to replace driver’s education cars with electric vehicles.

“Many of the manufacturers have completely stopped producing gasoline cars but they are producing electric cars so it only make sense for districts to adopt this because we want to make sure that we are teaching our kids now how to be adults in the future,” Collins said.

Collins says there are some differences in driving an EV compared to a gas car, but a lot of those options can be turned on and off.

He says PPS driver’s education EVs have a one pedal option where the driver can modulate the speed of the car by simply taking their foot off the gas and the vehicle will begin to break on its own. Another feature of the car includes a hold in place option where once the car is completely stopped, the driver can take their foot off the break and the car will not move.

“Those options can be turned on and off, so when you’re teaching driver’s ed to new students who are new to driving a vehicle, obviously those features would be turned off,” Collins said. “With those features turned off, it operates more like a gasoline or diesel vehicle.”

PPS has a total of four EVs; two at Richwoods High School, one at Peoria High School, and one at Manual High School.