Tag Archives: electric buses

The Technology Is Not Quite Ready For Prime Time

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On Friday, Hot Air posted an article detailing what has happened when municipalities decided to use electric buses. The article reminds us that electric buses do not do well in cold weather and that use of electric school buses in New York State and other northern states left students cold and stranded.

The article reports:

In March, I had a field day posting some of the latest news that had come in on both the urban and school district E-bus experiments. Tragically for the tax dollars involved, and, in some cases, the health, comfort, and well-being of the kiddos on the buses, most were abysmal disappointments and many flat-out disasters.

There were mechanical issues galore, scary fires that thankfully erupted in unoccupied vehicles but consumed the fleet in some cases, and maintenance/parts problems arising from bankrupt bus manufacturers that seemed insurmountable.

Tellingly, data was also now available from some of the school districts that had first adopted the E-buses, and the promised affordability was nowhere to be found. This was causing considerable consternation.

…This is with the Naples (NY) School District running only two electric school buses, both of which had initially paid for by federal grants, etc.

36 cents per mile for diesel and $3.18 per mile for electric

The article concludes with an example of this mess from Florida:

Local 10 News has learned that because federal grant money funded a significant portion of the electric bus fleets in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, there are federal guidelines tied to how long those buses are expected to remain in service.

If the buses are taken out of service early, counties may have to repay a portion of that federal funding.

That possibility is now driving decisions in both counties in very different ways.

In Broward County,transit officials have formally asked the Federal Transit Administration for forgiveness in an effort to avoid paying that money back.

“And so one of the things that we are, the application that we submitted to the FTA is for us to be able to get forgiveness from them so that we do not have to reimburse them for the funds that they have provided to us and also to be able to dispose of them,” said Coree Cuff Lonergan, CEO and general manager of Broward County Transit.

In Miami-Dade County, leaders are taking a different approach.

Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the county is still trying to find a way to get the buses back on the road.

“We are still hopeful we can still put them into service. The company that is the successor company is not able to give us the level of service we need,” she said.

…I think they need to scrounge up a new mayor, but that’s just me.

How much money did this electric boondoggle cost taxpayers?

When Failure Gets You Promoted

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On Monday, The American Thinker posted an article about Gareth Joyce, the CEO of Proterra, a company that manufactured rechargeable buses. The company has received more than $8 billion in seed money given to it by the federal government. The company declared bankruptcy this summer.

The article reports:

Joyce sits on what is known as the ITA, or the International Trade Administration, and according to a Washington Examiner report out today on the matter:

Under the International Trade Administration, the group ‘advises the President of government policies and programs that affect U.S. trade performance; promotes export expansion; and provides a forum for discussing and resolving trade-related problems among the business, industrial, agricultural, labor, and government sectors.’

If someone received billions of dollars, and still can’t keep a company afloat, then clearly their idea is terrible, or they blow at running a business—or realistically, probably both.

The article concludes:

Furthermore, Proterra’s demise specifically presents like Solyndra under Barack Obama—for more on this, read a blog I wrote on the issue a few weeks back here.

Yet, thanks to a criminal and unconstitutional tax code, and corrupt politicians, I have no say whatsoever in who my seized wealth subsidizes. This is the modus operandi of the Establishment though—Jackass and Elephant alike— running political popularity contests while we foot the bill.

Would you be surprised to learn that Proterra was once recognized by the World Economic Forum as a “Technology Pioneer”? I didn’t think so.

Our government has been hijacked by anti-American interests and foreign operatives keen to sabotage the economic prosperity of America first… which is exactly why Joyce still has a place in Biden’s regime.

If failure gets you promoted, what is the incentive to succeed?