Posted on 07/16/2021 5:06:01 AM PDT by Renkluaf
More than two dozen electric Proterra buses first unveiled by the city of Philadelphia in 2016 are already out of operation, according to a WHYY investigation.
The entire fleet of Proterra buses was removed from the roads by SEPTA, the city's transit authority, in February 2020 due to both structural and logistical problems—the weight of the powerful battery was cracking the vehicles' chassis, and the battery life was insufficient for the city's bus routes. The city raised the issues with Proterra, which failed to adequately address the city's concerns.
The city paid $24 million for the 25 new Proterra buses, subsidized in part by a $2.6 million federal grant. Philadelphia defended the investment with claims that the electric buses would require less maintenance than standard combustion engine counterparts.
"There’s a lot less moving parts on an electric bus than there is on an internal combustion engine," SEPTA chief Jeffrey Knueppel said in June 2019. Knueppel retired from the post just months later.
Proterra, which had Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on its board of directors when Philadelphia pulled the buses off the streets last year, has been highlighted by the Biden administration as a business of the future. President Joe Biden visited the company's factory in April and pledged in his initial infrastructure package proposal to include federal money for the electric vehicle market. The company has since been touted by top officials including White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy, who in a public meeting asked Proterra's CEO how the federal government could spur demand for Proterra buses.
The cost of Proterra's electric buses has gained attention in recent weeks. On a recent trip by Biden to La Crosse, Wis., it was revealed that two buses the city ordered from Proterra for $1.5 million in 2018 have still not been delivered. Over the past five days, Proterra’s stock price has fallen over 25 percent.
Philadelphia's Proterra buses were first rolled out for the 2016 DNC convention with a promise that the city was "plugging into an emissions free future."
Granholm was on Proterra’s board from 2017 until earlier this year. It was during that time that both SEPTA and Proterra learned that the heavier buses were cracking, according to the WHYY report.
Philadelphia placed the Proterra buses in areas where it thought they could succeed but quickly learned it was mistaken. Two pilot routes selected in South Philadelphia that were relatively short and flat compared with others in the city were too much for the electric buses.
"Even those routes needed buses to pull around 100 miles each day, while the Proterras were averaging just 30 to 50 miles per charge," WHYY reporter Ryan Briggs wrote. "Officials also quickly realized there wasn’t room at the ends of either route for charging stations."
Similar problems have been found in other cities that partnered with Proterra. Duluth, Minn., which, like Philadelphia, waited three years for its Proterra buses to be delivered, ultimately pulled its seven buses from service "because their braking systems were struggling on Duluth’s hills, and a software problem was causing them to roll back when accelerating uphill from a standstill," according to the Duluth Monitor.
That is the future unless we drain the Swamp
24 million taxpayer dollars wasted. But the city fathers don’t care. It’s not their money.
There’s a shift happening, I don’t think that can be denied. It makes me chuckle when I see the repeated failures of green industries, but at some point there will be a breakthrough that will change the minds of the public and make feasibility more long term. I don’t know when that will happen, but it will happen. History dictates it always does.
They did exactly what many “green” projects are designed to do - that is, they extracted lots of “green” from taxpayers to the appropriate pockets via the government.
Hell of a price to pay for being stylish.
Visions of Solyndra keep popping up. /s
the city was “plugging into an emissions free future.”.....Looks like it was going to be “public transportation free” also. Proving once again that the old conventional diesel buses are probably the better way to go.
I’m sorry but live deep behind the curtain out here in the Soviet of Washington, and such an obtuse prediction as what you stated requires more explanation. I see no shift other than maybe the greenies grabbing second gear and the big bad green machine chirped it massive rear wheels. Please do explain.
I'm sure they got their cut.
I might add that gov’t. officials who push this kind of “emissions free” crap have generally been kind of a flop as well, so maybe their salaries need to be figured into the mix when they figure their losses on this kind of stuff.
It’s the same old yarn bigfootbob. When horses were the primary mode of personal transport, everyone eschewed the idea of the “horseless carriage.” When trains were used for continental transit and steamers were used to cross the oceans, everyone turned up their nose at the idea of flying. That was only for the elites.
As we’ve grown, new ideas of personal transit have cropped up. Some have failed to become ubiquitous (Segway anyone?), while others are gaining steam (no pun intended) like Tesla. The problem is that what works on a small scale like a battery powered bicycle or even a Tesla fails to translate on a large scale like a bus. Then there’s a problem of infrastructure.
The camel’s nose is in the tent with electric. It is absolutely NOT a panacea for all of the world’s ills as the lefties would have you think, but I do see where electric vehicles are more ubiquitous in the future. Time will tell how far it goes, because we have yet to see a full lifecycle of these vehicles. For instance, what happens when the batteries in a Tesla are worn down to nothing? Are they recycled? What’s the cost to keep using the vehicle? Or was it always designed to be “thrown away” like everything else we consume nowadays?
Meanwhile there’s still a market for old school carbeurated gas vehicles and diesel. That won’t go away anytime soon. I’m simply saying, bigfootbob, that at some point society wrenches new things into the social zeitgeist that it’s impossible to ignore or to not partake.
ALOT less moving parts in the heads of those who think we can do everything with all electric.
Mechanical Engineering uses math......Which is racist.
Ain’t the green new deal great! You only have to have a connection in order to sell it to the government, who cares about delivery dates or if the damn thing even works.
Guess California isn’t the only state with a
“Train that goes nowhere “ as it were.
More Dem&Grifter Co.
pocket stuffing.
The Green extremists are going to completely mess over life as we know it if allowed to proceed as they are heading with government policy.
Electrical Engineering uses math......Which is ALSO racist.
Ohm’s Law is racist.....................
I get your point, but from my perspective the next “thing” isn’t even been conceived yet. All the issues you manifested are exactly why we have a way to go before we get to that fork in the road. Of which I agree is coming.
Aftermarket EV batteries is an emerging market that is crazy right now. I’m not sure if the issue of recycling the batteries will affect the EV popularity as much as the power grid inequities that are causing energy providers to ask EV owners not to charge their vehicles. After all how many trees and how many acres of landfill space do disposable diapers take and no one seems to give a shit.
Speaking of Segway’s, that’s a great example. Today it seems the only Segway’s I see are being used by mall security and meter readers. Hahaha.
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