Greenpower Motor Company has filed two NHTSA recalls, 26V629000 and 26V643000, covering 102 wheelchair-lift buses in which a software error may allow the bus to move while the lift is deployed. The larger campaign, 26V629000, covers 94 EV Star and EV Star Mobility Plus buses and was reported on Sept. 30, 2026. The smaller, 26V643000, covers eight 2021 Nano Beast school buses and was received on Oct. 5. Both carry Greenpower’s recall number GP2604002.
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The fault is an absence, not a malfunction. Greenpower’s safety reports say the interlock logic for the vehicle’s operational software was not properly added, so the control module never enforced the rule that a bus must stay put while its lift is out. The company estimates that 100% of the buses in both campaigns have the condition.
An interlock that was never written into the software
In the Part 573 report for the EV Star campaign, Greenpower spells out what that means on the road. On an incline, a bus could roll if the parking brake is not set. If the brake is released while the lift is deployed, the bus could roll or be shifted into drive or reverse. The report cites the possibility of a crash, injury or death. NHTSA’s summary of the consequence, in the Nano Beast campaign record, reads: the bus moving while the lift is in use increases the risk of injury.
The two campaigns split the fleet by model. Campaign 26V629000 covers 2018-2024 EV Star buses, 87 of them, and 2020-2023 EV Star Mobility Plus buses, seven of them, according to the NHTSA campaign record. Two of those buses are final-stage builds on a chassis from Weichai Yangzhou Yaxing Commercial Vehicle Co Ltd. Campaign 26V643000 adds the 2021 Nano Beast school buses. Greenpower’s own chronology refers to about 102 vehicles in all, which matches 94 plus eight.
A February video and a hill-hold fix
The trigger was a piece of footage. In February 2026, NHTSA forwarded Greenpower a video involving a Nano Beast school bus. Greenpower’s account is that the operators did not follow the required procedure and that the lift was only partly deployed, possibly because of a relaxed or failed control valve. Between March and July the company ran failure-mode reviews and concluded that the interlock was meant to work with the parking brake engaged. It then decided that activating the lift should trigger the bus’s hill-hold function, and since July it has been testing and finalizing the programming. In the Nano Beast report, Greenpower adds that the standard it reviewed was not intended to cover interlock controls on non-powered, manual operation.
Greenpower reports no injuries or crashes, and says it has received no further reports since the February incident.
Nothing in either filing explains why the Nano Beast buses were split into their own campaign a week after the first. The Part 573 report for the Nano Beast campaign does not mention 26V629, and its related-recall field reads “TBD.” Both reports describe the same flaw in the same words and the same fix, and the filings give no sign of a different cause behind the second one.
The calendar is long for a lift hazard. The video reached Greenpower in February, the failure-mode reviews ran from March to July, and the first Part 573 report reached NHTSA on Sept. 30, about seven months after the footage. The EV Star report lists production dates from Jan. 1, 2018 through Sept. 29, 2026, so buses were still being built with the same software on the day before the filing. The vehicle counts in the filings are 87 EV Stars, seven EV Star Mobility Plus buses and eight Nano Beasts, and no figure is given for how many of them have a lift in use on a given day.
A control-module update that ties the lift to the park brake
Dealers will update the control module software free of charge, according to the NHTSA dataset entry, which lists the remedy simply as a software update. Greenpower’s report says what the update does: once installed, the module controls lift operation only when the parking-brake interlock is engaged. Before the update, the software did not tie the lift to the parking brake in that way.
Owner letters were expected to be mailed Oct. 12, 2026, and the Part 573 reports plan notification between Oct. 12 and Oct. 26, with a note that the dates may change. Greenpower customer service is at 1-909-346-1090, and the recall number to quote is GP2604002. The people closest to the risk are the riders who board on the lift and the staff who operate it, since the hazard exists only while the platform is out and a person is on or beside it. The filings describe the risk as movement, which includes a slow roll on a slope as well as a driver pulling away with the lift still down, so the exposure begins whenever the lift is out and the brake is not set.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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