World’s first all-electric bus fleet shut down due to breakdowns and expense

Electric Buses Not a Panacea

Last week, the city of Seneca, South Carolina decided to shut down the Clemson Area Transit System, which served Seneca and nearby Clemson University. Once touted as owning the world’s first all-electric bus fleet, just a few years later two thirds of its expensive electric buses had broken down, the company that made them went bankrupt, parts were no longer available, and the city can’t afford to buy replacement buses.

Seneca is not exactly a major metropolis. But Clemson Area Transit isn’t the only transit agency to have trouble with electric buses. Just the day before Seneca decided to shut down its transit system, Austin’s Capital Metro announced that it was giving up on its plan to electrify its bus fleet by 2030. Electric bus technology, said the agency, simply hasn’t progressed far enough to replace Diesels.

California’s Foothill Transit, one of the first agencies to use rapid-charge electric buses in 2010, has also had problems. Like Austin, the agency had hoped to completely electrify by 2030. Instead, by 2020 most of the electric buses in its fleet were out of service. In 2021, the agency decided to return the buses even though doing so would require it to pay a $5 million penalty to the Federal Transit Administration, whose grant initially paid most of the cost.

The Southeast Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) may be the largest agency to have practically given up on electric buses. It pulled its 25-bus electric fleet out of service in 2021 when the buses were just five years old. The buses had suffered cracks in their chassis, but it appears that problem was only the straw that broke the omnibus’s back. “We do not feel the current [electric bus] technology is a good investment at this time,” concluded SEPTA’s general manager.

Transit agencies in Asheville, Colorado Springs, and several other cities have reported similar problems. Albuquerque completely gave up on its electric buses and returned them to the manufacturer, a Chinese company called BYD.

Electric buses cost 50 to 100 percent more than their Diesel counterparts. A 2019 study by US PIRG predicted that such buses would nevertheless save transit agencies $400,000 apiece over their lifetimes due to lower fuel and maintenance costs. US PIRG relied on four “success stories” to justify this conclusion. Success story number one was Seneca, South Carolina.

The report acknowledged Albuquerque’s problems but blamed them on the city’s hills and high temperatures. Compared with Austin, Albuquerque is practically flat and its temperatures are nowhere near as extreme. If electric buses can’t work in Albuquerque, they aren’t going to work in a lot of other cities.

Other than Albuquerque, one thing many of these failures have in common is electric buses manufactured by Proterra, one of four major electric bus manufacturers that have recently sold buses in the U.S. and the only one to actually be a U.S. company. In 2023, it claimed that COVID-related supply-chain problems had driven it into bankruptcy. The company’s three divisions — transit buses, batteries and drive trains, and charging systems — were sold to three other companies to pay Proterra’s debts and none of the buyers are supporting Proterra’s buses or even making similar buses. In view of the many problems transit agencies were having with its buses before 2023, it seems likely the supply-chain explanation was just a dodge for Proterra’s shoddy design and workmanship.

One reason for that may simply be opportunism on the part of bus manufacturers, including both Proterra and BYD. Before passage of the 2021 infrastructure bill, the federal government was paying 80 percent of the cost of Diesel buses but 90 percent of the cost of electric buses purchased by transit agencies. For a transit agency, that meant that an electric bus could cost twice as much as a Diesel bus without costing local taxpayers an extra dime. Bus manufacturers thus felt free to increase their profits by raising the price of their electric buses and, having done so, may have compounded the problem by cutting costs.

Beyond manufacturing defects, electric buses have several generic problems. First, while a Diesel bus can operate all day, an electric bus can operate only a few hours on a single time-consuming charge. Proterra claimed to have solved this problem with a rapid-charge system, but that didn’t prevent Foothill Transit from suffering enormous problems with its electric buses. This probably is particularly serious on long bus routes: Austin’s Capital Metro estimates that today’s electric buses could satisfactorily serve only 36 percent of its routes.

Second, the batteries needed to power electric bus motors are heavy, which is probably why SEPTA’s buses suffered cracks in their chassis. Supposedly, the frames on SEPTA’s Proterra buses were made of “resin, fiberglass, carbon fiber, balsa wood, and steel reinforcement plates,” which almost sounds like a joke. But making frames strong enough to support the batteries means adding even more weight to the buses, which shortens their range and adds to wear and tear on other parts of the buses.

Third, electric buses are not necessarily climate-friendly enough to justify their added cost. In Washington state, where most electric power comes from hydroelectric dams, switching from Diesel to electric buses will definitely reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But most other states, including New Mexico, South Carolina, and Texas, get most of their electricity from fossil fuels and thus electric buses may not reduce greenhouse gas emissions at all when compared with Diesels.

Under the 2021 infrastructure law, the federal government is handing out close to a billion dollars to buy electric buses. Advocacy groups such as US PIRG want transit agencies to “commit to a full transition to electric buses on a specific timeline.” Such funding and commitment may be premature, however, if electric bus technology is not capable of equalling Diesel buses, will cost agencies more in the long run, and won’t do much to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

Originally published by The Antiplanner. Republished with permission.

Related Topics:#HeartlandDailyNews ClemsonAreaTransitSystem ElectricBusFleet SenecaSouthCarolina TheAntiplanner

Up Next

Biden Admin Reportedly Throws Support Behind UN Push To Decrease Global Plastic Production

Don't Miss

The UK Riots: Misinformation Causes Everything

Todayville

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

Biden autopen scandal: Did unelected aides commit fraud during his final days in office?

Business / 1 hour ago

Conservatives demand probe into Liberal vaccine injury program’s $50m mismanagement

Business / 4 hours ago

Canada must address its birth tourism problem

Automotive

America’s EV Industry Must Now Compete On A Level Playing Field

Published on July 10, 2025

Todayville

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

America’s carmakers face an uncertain future in the wake of President Donald Trump’s signing of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) into law on July 4.

The new law ends the $7,500 credit for new electric vehicles ($4,000 for used units) which was enacted as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act as of September 30, seven years earlier than originally planned.

The promise of that big credit lasting for a full decade did not just improve finances for Tesla and other pure-play EV companies: It also served as a major motivator for integrated carmakers like Ford, GM, and Stellantis to invest billions of dollars in capital into new, EV-specific plants, equipment, and supply chains, and expand their EV model offerings. But now, with the big subsidy about to expire, the question becomes whether the U.S. EV business can survive in an unsubsidized market? Carmakers across the EV spectrum are about to find out, and the outlook for most will not be rosy.

These carmakers will be entering into a brave new world in which the market for their cars had already turned somewhat sour even with the subsidies in place. Sales of EVs stalled during the fourth quarter of 2024 and then collapsed by more than 18% from December to January. Tesla, already negatively impacted by founder and CEO Elon Musk’s increased political activities in addition to the stagnant market, decided to slash prices in an attempt to maintain sales momentum, forcing its competitors to follow suit.

But the record number of EV-specific incentives now being offered by U.S. dealers has done little to halt the drop in sales, as the Wall Street Journal reports that the most recent data shows EV sales falling in each of the three months from April through June. Ford said its own sales had fallen by more than 30% across those three months, with Hyundai and Kia also reporting big drops. GM was the big winner in the second quarter, overtaking Ford and moving into 2nd place behind Tesla in total sales. But its ability to continue such growth absent the big subsidy edge over traditional ICE cars now falls into doubt.

The removal of the per-unit subsidies also calls into question whether the buildout of new public charging infrastructure, which has accelerated dramatically in the past three years, will continue as the market moves into a time of uncertainty. Recognizing that consumer concern, Ford, Hyundai, BMW and others included free home charging kits as part of their current suites of incentives. But of course, that only works if the buyer owns a home with a garage and is willing to pay the higher cost of insurance that now often comes with parking an EV inside.

Decisions, decisions.

As the year dawned, few really expected the narrow Republican congressional majorities would show the political will and unity to move so aggressively to cancel the big IRA EV subsidies. But, as awareness rose in Congress about the true magnitude of the budgetary cost of those provisions over the next 10 years, the benefit of getting rid of them ultimately subsumed concerns about the possible political cost of doing so.

So now, here we are, with an EV industry that seems largely unprepared to survive in a market with a levelized playing field. Even Tesla, which remains far and away the leader in total EV sales despite its recent struggles, seems caught more than a little off-guard despite Musk’s having been heavily involved in the early months of the second Trump presidency.

Musk’s response to his disapproval of the OBBBA was to announce the creation of a third political party he dubbed the American Party. It seems doubtful this new vanity project was the response to a looming challenge that members of Tesla’s board of directors would have preferred. But it does seem appropriately emblematic of an industry that is undeniably limping into uncharted territory with no clear plan for how to escape from existential danger.

We do live in interesting times.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

Automotive

Federal government should swiftly axe foolish EV mandate

Published on July 9, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Kenneth P. Green

Two recent events exemplify the fundamental irrationality that is Canada’s electric vehicle (EV) policy.

First, the Carney government re-committed to Justin Trudeau’s EV transition mandate that by 2035 all (that’s 100 per cent) of new car sales in Canada consist of “zero emission vehicles” including battery EVs, plug-in hybrid EVs and fuel-cell powered vehicles (which are virtually non-existent in today’s market). This policy has been a foolish idea since inception. The mass of car-buyers in Canada showed little desire to buy them in 2022, when the government announced the plan, and they still don’t want them.

Second, President Trump’s “Big Beautiful” budget bill has slashed taxpayer subsidies for buying new and used EVs, ended federal support for EV charging stations, and limited the ability of states to use fuel standards to force EVs onto the sales lot. Of course, Canada should not craft policy to simply match U.S. policy, but in light of policy changes south of the border Canadian policymakers would be wise to give their own EV policies a rethink.

And in this case, a rethink—that is, scrapping Ottawa’s mandate—would only benefit most Canadians. Indeed, most Canadians disapprove of the mandate; most do not want to buy EVs; most can’t afford to buy EVs (which are more expensive than traditional internal combustion vehicles and more expensive to insure and repair); and if they do manage to swing the cost of an EV, most will likely find it difficult to find public charging stations.

Also, consider this. Globally, the mining sector likely lacks the ability to keep up with the supply of metals needed to produce EVs and satisfy government mandates like we have in Canada, potentially further driving up production costs and ultimately sticker prices.

Finally, if you’re worried about losing the climate and environmental benefits of an EV transition, you should, well, not worry that much. The benefits of vehicle electrification for climate/environmental risk reduction have been oversold. In some circumstances EVs can help reduce GHG emissions—in others, they can make them worse. It depends on the fuel used to generate electricity used to charge them. And EVs have environmental negatives of their own—their fancy tires cause a lot of fine particulate pollution, one of the more harmful types of air pollution that can affect our health. And when they burst into flames (which they do with disturbing regularity) they spew toxic metals and plastics into the air with abandon.

So, to sum up in point form. Prime Minister Carney’s government has re-upped its commitment to the Trudeau-era 2035 EV mandate even while Canadians have shown for years that most don’t want to buy them. EVs don’t provide meaningful environmental benefits. They represent the worst of public policy (picking winning or losing technologies in mass markets). They are unjust (tax-robbing people who can’t afford them to subsidize those who can). And taxpayer-funded “investments” in EVs and EV-battery technology will likely be wasted in light of the diminishing U.S. market for Canadian EV tech.

If ever there was a policy so justifiably axed on its failed merits, it’s Ottawa’s EV mandate. Hopefully, the pragmatists we’ve heard much about since Carney’s election victory will acknowledge EV reality.