Who Killed The Electric Bus
You may remember the curious demise of the original electric cars. Proverbial smoking guns are lacking. Motive, opportunity, and the usual suspects, are abundant. What is omitted from the literature, the questions not addressed, is more important than the story presented.
With the electric bus and current electric cars, it was suicide, dead at the launch. Hope springs abundant that Elon Musk will change that in time, but hope doesn't equate to facts or alter the current economic carnage. With all the suppressed technologies—battery, storage, solar—plus the environmental nightmare to build and maintain them, there was no way they would ever work as currently configured.
As Asheville, North Carolina, learned the hard way.
__________________________________
In 2018, the city heralded the purchase of five state-of-the-art electric buses, each with a price tag of over $616,796, abc13 News reported.
Fast forward to today, and this green dream has morphed into a financial nightmare, with most of the fleet idled due to a series of almost unbelievable misfortunes.
Interim Transportation Director Jessica Morriss reported that three of the five buses are currently inoperative, with one bus sidelined by a malfunctioning double door since July.
“We haven’t been able to get new doors,” Asheville’s interim transportation director Jessica Morriss told abc13 News. “There’s no third party that makes a door. We’d have to get custom-made doors.”
[Snip]
But the expenses don’t stop at the purchase price. Morriss reveals a staggering total cost per bus nearing $1 million, including infrastructure for chargers and annual costs like leasing batteries and electric charges. And then there’s maintenance – another $251,000 spent on items like replacing traction drive controls for all buses. Maintenance director John McDaniel adds to the tale of woe, noting the replacement of power inverters at $14,000 each.
“The last couple of years have been particularly difficult,” Morriss laments, noting the bus manufacturer, Proterra, has filed for bankruptcy, making parts for repairs as elusive as a quiet day in their department. “We don’t see an end in sight,” she adds.
The operational buses can barely make it through a day’s work. McDaniel notes that in winter, the range is about 78 miles – roughly three airport trips – before needing hours of charging. And overnight, the buses get cold, gobbling up a significant part of their charge just to warm up.
[Snip]
Also, electric vehicle owners in the Chicago area have not been able to charge their overpriced method of transportation in the bitter cold this week, leaving scenes of dead electric cars littered across public charging stations.
It turns out buying a worthless car to virtue-signal for the environment has unintended consequences.
Fox Chicago reported Monday the charging stations have turned into electric car graveyards over the past two days as temperatures in the Windy City and its suburbs have dipped to the negative double digits.