Kevin Killough: The Great Austin EV Bus Boondoggle Keeps Getting Worse

Kevin Killough, the terrific, real energy journalist at JustTheNews, reported Tuesday on the continuing electric bus fiasco in the oh, so, woke Texas city of Austin.

Here’s an excerpt from that story at JustTheNews.com:

Austin, Texas, planned to transition all its city buses to electric, but the ambitious climate-friendly goal has come to a screeching halt. 

The Austin Monitor reports that 46 new electric buses – costing around $1 million each – will be in storage for at least a year due to lack of charging infrastructure to keep them running all day. The buses were manufactured by now-bankrupt Proterra, which has left city transit districts across the country with fleets of inoperable buses. 

Proterra was acquired by Phoenix Motor Inc., which the Monitor reports is struggling to service warranties and repair technical issues. 

The city’s transit board appropriated $255 million to buy 197 electric buses, some of which were manufactured by Minnesota-based New Flyer of America. In July, KUT News reported that Austin’s transit officials were beginning to realize that their ambitious e-bus plan was crumbling. 

While diesel-powered buses could run for nearly 24 hours without refueling, an electric bus needed to recharge every 8 to 10 hours, which was creating logistical issues. Drivers doing long routes often had to stop in the middle of the route to go charge, according to KUT, and the city’s hot climates and hills were making it worse. 

The buses also experienced breakdowns at more than twice the rate of diesel buses. In 2022, half the buses were broken down, on average, and the figure improved only slightly last year. 

[End]

Here’s an excerpt from the referenced KUT News story that I wrote about in July:

Capital Metro is slamming the brakes on an ambitious goal of transitioning to an all-electric bus fleet, citing problems with the range of battery-electric buses.

Austin voters were promised a transit system with exclusively electric vehicles when they authorized a tax increase in 2020 to fund Project Connect, the largest transit expansion in the city's history. Zero-emissions buses are quieter and don't blast hot exhaust in the faces of people on the sidewalk.

"Honestly, we thought and hoped that the technology would progress a little faster than it has," CapMetro CEO Dottie Watkins told KUT. "The biggest downside of a battery-electric bus today is its range."

Diesel buses can run from early in the morning until past midnight. A battery bus only runs about 8 to 10 hours before it needs to be recharged, creating tough logistical hurdles in scheduling routes.

An analysis by the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) — a state-funded research agency at Texas A&M University — found battery-electric buses could only cover 36% of Capital Metro's bus schedules.

"If [the route] is too long, it won't make it," said John Overman, a research scientist with TTI. "You're going to have to charge them mid-route or wherever it is." Austin's hills drain batteries faster. So does trying to cool buses in the city's oppressive heat.

[End]

As I noted at the time, nobody - NOBODY - could have possibly seen a problem with Austin’s hilly landscape causing the buses’ batteries to discharge faster than anticipated!

You just cannot make these people up, folks, and why would any sane person ever even want to try?

That is all.