Posted on 07/17/2021 7:38:43 PM PDT by Hojczyk
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is one of the deep-blue cities that’s been priding itself in leading the charge against climate change for years now. Back in 2016, they decided to establish a position as an early adopter of electric vehicle technology on a large scale to reduce their carbon footprint.
The city purchased 25 electric buses from a company called Protera at a staggering price tag of nearly one million dollars apiece and put them into operation. But barely four years later, every one of the buses had been pulled from service and is deemed unusable. What went so horribly wrong to produce such a result? As the Free Beacon reports this week, just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
ETB networks in Edmonton (AB) and Toronto (ON) were liquidated some years ago and replaced with diesel buses.
“Access to inexpensive hydrogen fuel remains a significant challenge for transit agencies deploying FCEBs[fuel-cell electric buses]”
https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/40395
Those are the Muni Buses, right? Big plastic windows and little green seats. A lot of folks still depend on them.
I was without a car for a long time in the early 1990’s, so I would take them once in a while. Art Agnos was Mayor. I found it easier to just take BART Trains. Less people begging on the trains, at least back then.
Watt are you talking about...maybe Amp up the conversation.
But Big Gov LOVES
Electric because they
Can Shut It Down in a
Heartbeat.
You can buy one for $19.99 on ebay! Search term - Junk electric buses
There are still trolleybus routes in both Boston and Philadelphia.
Philadelphia still has a number of those too. Routes 10, 11, 13, 15, 34 and 36 from the former Philadelphia Transit Company, and routes 101 and 102 from the former Red Arrow Lines. Route 23 still has the tracks, but has been run as a bus since the 1990s; route 56 was supposed to have been restored to a trolley, but the city backpedaled on that.
Purchased in 2016. This was during 44’s green initiative cronyism I’m surprised there were even buses to account for the 26 million spent. But it doesn’t surprise me they failed in maintaining the buses. I’m curious who in the 44 Admin knew at Protera.
Oh and here is a transcript of Jack Allen, CEO of Protera (March 2021) going before congress and pitching the acceleration of zero emissions vehicles. Maybe congress should be reminded of what’s going on in Philli
https://transportation.house.gov/imo/media/doc/Allen%20Testimony2.pdf
Not very far removed from trolley cars?
No, they just need a second wire for a ground and they do have a bit of lateral mobility to go between the curb to pick-up/discharge passengers and being the lane of traffic and having more flexibility in transiting intersections.
No, they just need a second wire for a ground and they do have a bit of lateral mobility to go between the curb to pick-up/discharge passengers and being in the lane of traffic and having more flexibility in transiting intersections.
About three years ago, we went to China to visit my wife’s family. There was an electric vehicle graveyard in Beijing that probably covered about 20 acres. There was row after row of electric busses that were being cut up for scrap. There was piles of charging stations that were being busted up to recover the metal. They didn’t look very old.
I guess that the Chi-Coms figured out that electric vehicles aren’t worth it.
Philadelphia city streets have become an obstacle course since prancing Jim Kenney took over. Have had to have parts replaced in my front suspension and have lost tires. It's pathetic that I am nostalgic about the days of Michael Nutter.
Not going to argue your point, but what is the excuse for the white idiots in the city who helped reelect Krasner. The city is overrun by young white morons. They've even infected South Philly.
Let me take a wild guess... They found out the same thing I found out about “rechargeable batteries”, after a little while it takes longer to charge them and they don’t last as long. Duh?
Next time you pass a full-size city bus, make a mental note of how many people you see inside. I rarely see more than a half dozen or so at any given time. They could save money practically using mini-vans, or those small shuttle buses that the casinos and airports use. Public transportation is such a racket.
Great question. What about the union bosses?
We used to have them. They were called street cars and worked very well. They were great to ride on.
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