From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
JULY 19, 2021
By Paul Homewood
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, waitedthree 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.
Proterra did not respond to a request for comment.
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Another shoot, ready, aim for the AGW believers.
Another stellar success by Jennifer Grandstand🤪
From the Duluth Monitor
“Proterra technicians traveled to Duluth to make the necessary repairs. To reduce the drain on the battery, they installed diesel-powered heating systems on the buses. This upgrade allowed the battery to be used strictly for locomotion—but also meant that the buses were no longer emissions-free.”
Why didn’t they just install diesel generators?
https://www.duluthmonitor.com/2020/09/19/electric-bus-pilot-project-reveals-problems/
Or diesel MOTORS?!
Here is a MUST READ EV anecdote
Briglin is an eager-beaver RE nut in Vermont, unfortunately the Chairman of the House E&E Committee
He has been bragging about his EV and that everyone should buy one. Then his EV CAUGHT FIRE
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/some-ne-state-governments-play-deceptive-games-with-co2-emissions
THETFORD; July 2, 2021 — A fire destroyed a 2019 Chevy Bolt, owned by state Rep. Tim Briglin, D-Thetford, Chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Technology.
He had plugged his 2019 Chevy Bolt into his 240-volt outdoor charger.
The battery was at 10% charge at start of charging, at 8 PM, and he had charged it to 100% charge at 4 AM (8 hours of charging!!)
NOTE: Charging to 100% not only use more kWh AC per kWh DC in the battery, but also heats up your battery, i.e., a shorter life and less range sooner.
He was lucky, it was not parked in his garage.
Firefighters were called to Briglin’s Tucker Hill Road home around 9 AM Thursday. See Note
Investigators from the Vermont Department of Public Safety Fire and Explosion Investigation Unit determined:
1) The fire started in a compartment in the back of the passenger’s side of the vehicle
2) It was likely due to an electrical failure.
In 2020, GM issued a recall of nearly 68,667 Chevy Bolts, 2017, 2018 and 2019 models.
Owners are advised not to charge them in a garage, and not to leave them unattended while charging, which may take up to 8 hours; what a nuisance!
NOTE:
EV batteries should be charged from 20% to 80% charge, for minimal degradation and long life.
EV batteries shall not be charged, when the battery temperature is less than 32F; if charged anyway, the battery would be permanently damaged.
See section Charging Electric Vehicles During Freezing Conditions in URL
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/some-ne-state-governments-play-deceptive-games-with-co2-emissions
https://www.vnews.com/Firefighters-put-out-blaze-in-car-of-Vt-State-Representative-41272606
https://www.engadget.com/gm-chevy-bolt-fire-warning-215322969.html
https://electrek.co/2020/11/13/gm-recall-chevy-bolt-evs-potential-fire-risk/
“He has been bragging about his EV and that everyone should buy one.”
Should every EV owner burn her/his vehicle every two years, there is no need for the rest of us to go electric.
So pretty much useless north of say, Florida. SMH!
I’m sure that’s another “gotcha!” regarding the specified “range” they use to sell EV garbage – that is probably calculated based on 100% charge, which they then tell you not to do. :-I
Inadequate long-term testing. Rather like than not carried out by Mr. Pfizer!
I agree with your sentiment. On the other hand, would you prefer a face mask for five years?
Now, we have to wear face masks again along with vaccinations. So it is apparent that neither work as advertised, just like electric buses.
What about: leave people alone? There was never anything remotely close to a pandemic.
“the weight of the powerful battery was cracking the vehicles’ chassis, and the battery life was insufficient for the city’s bus routes. ”
Have they dumbed down or dispensed with engineers? Chassis breaking because of weight of batteries. Insufficient range to complete a route. As a mining engineer, even I could have pre-determined these failures.
Buses on city streets are different than on a company’s test track. Hit a few potholes and multiply the actual load of the batteries. Apply the brakes sharply a dozen times a day and the forward torque of the battery load compresses the forward mounts and lifts on the rear ones repeatedly.Take a few hundred right and left turns at intersections and sideways torque loads one side of the chassis in compression and the other in tension repeatedly.
What was done here was to concentrate on chiseling off as much overall weight from the bus as possible to get driving range. The chassis was one they over did.
Almost anything else but a chassis failure could probably be fixed and modified. These are shear/fatigue failures so the buses that haven’t failed yet also need to be taken out of service. The range problem has to be dealt with though.
For cities electrifying their fleets, get 3 buses early in the contract and run them on your most demanding route for 3yrs. Then have them taken apart and thoroughly inspected for field info for the manufacturer to make modifications.
Yeah, but the electricity likely comes from coal so what’s the point?
Yeah, I agree with you there, Griff, coal power didn’t fail.
“As a mining engineer, even I could have pre-determined these failures.”
Hell, as a software engineer (which is nowhere near the level of rigor required for physical engineering) I could have predicted them.
I’m not any kind of an engineer, and I could figure out that multiplying the battery pack weight by two was going to be a problem.
That won’t work, because the battery powered buses won’t be able to run your most demanding routes – which should tell you everything you need to know about what a bad idea they are!
What about the emissions from manufacturing? They never seem to talk about those. I’ve asked people in these cars and all I get is a dumb look.
I park in the ‘Low Emision & Electric vehicles only” spaces all the time.
I thought by now I would have to explain to some idgit that, given the manufacturing emissions and the 370,000 miles on the Tahoe (small suburban), it has a lower overall emission rate than whatever they drive.
AT 13 mpg it may not be true, but I’m still lookn forward to telling the story.
They give EVs the close parking so they don’t run out of charge looking for parking spaces and clog up the lot.
From the above article:
“Even those routes needed buses to pull around 100 miles each day, while the Proterras were averaging just 30 to 50 miles per charge . . . Officials also quickly realized there wasn’t room at the ends of either route for charging stations.”
One mighty fine example of the average IQ level of bureaucrats! Philadelphia’s taxpayers and businesses should take pride that it only cost them $25 million or so to re-discover this age-old fact.
A quick search reveals widespread problems with EV buses everywhere. The bursting into flame of the fleet of German buses, to me, is the one I would be most concerned about. You can always get off a bus that’s run out of juice.
When the famous laptop burst into flames on an airliner, specifications for battery chemicals changed that reduced transition element impurities in the lithium carbonate feedstock for battery manufacture to single digit ppm and lower and the industry also began switching from lithium carbonate to lithium hydroxide as the preferred starting chemical.
An important thing to ask for by a prospective customer for a bus fleet is the battery manufacturer’s specifications for its battery chemicals to have these checked for details of acceptable impurities. Breakdowns are a nuisance for passengers but a battery fire could be a disaster. The rough ride a big battery gets in a bus is something I’m not familiar with in terms of fire risk, but I’d be worried about it.
It still took several incidents, some quite serious, to do something about the 777. Under Obama’s watch, under the EU’s watch (who was “president” of Europe? nobody knows!!!!).
And they dared accuse Trump‘s FAA to not be vigilant with Boeing…
Everything is Trump’s fault…
If it weren’t for Trump’s policies and arrogance, Hunter would not be smokn all the crack; and little sister wouldn’t have memories of showering with dad.
What was wrong with the 777?
“What was wrong with the 777?”
As I recall, it used a lithium battery for one of it’s systems, and they developed a nasty habit of bursting into flames, sometimes actually in flight!
Ever wonder why there is not much talk about recycling Lithium type batteries?
Here is more than you want to know.
Recycling lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles | Nature
and
The Race To Crack Battery Recycling—Before It’s Too Late | WIRED
and
It’s time to get serious about recycling lithium-ion batteries (acs.org)
Can they make a solar or wind powered incinerator? Just sayin>
The stock price is about 1/3 of its peak in January 2021.
This is what is meant by a green new deal.
[In some places the bus drivers were classed as “green jobs”.]
AS I like to call it (and more accurately), the “Green Screw-Steal.”
Why does it remind me the Monorail affair from Springfield, Simpsons?
Who is the most abominable character in the Simpsons, and why is it Lisa?
Philly has of lot overhead wires from trackless trolleys to handle much of this. I don’t know why that was not used. The buses, were 100% crap from the start.
I like the blue color. Bought a Subaru Crosstrek that color.
It worked as advertised.
50 shades of Boeing Max. Also, no durable testing to establish safety… viability profiles. Just do it. Deja vu.
As usual, the crowd here is celebrating the failure of at least some electric buses even though someone actively using the thought process would realize that this says nothing about the feasibility of electric bus technology generally. I have no opinion on the matter because I know so little about it, but I will not be surprised if electric busses become more and more commonplace. There is certainly an advantage to using them in cities since the are cleaner and quieter (within the city). Does it make an iota of difference to global warming; very unlikely. Someday the truth of global warming/climate change will become more clear to everyone and all this fussing will fade away. I, unfortunately, will not live to see this.
Electric trains and trams work fine
Just not compatible with personal or business vehicle use on the on the same road.
Eventually the E-Bus will be useful. 10 years?
The story here is throwing money at something just to see if it sticks.
Capital will be available when the technology begins to seem promising.
If Philly spent its own money I wouldn’t mind.
Tye fact is that battery technology in terms of watt hours per kilogram is approaching very close to theoretical limits.
Battery cars never will match furl cars for range.
This says everything about the feasibility of electric bus technology generally.
The batteries are not big enough, and when they made them bigger, the bus performance was totally degraded and it cracked its carbon fibre chassis.
regen braking is all very well but it isn’t 100% efficient and stopping and starting a heavy bus inherently uses more electricity than cruising along a freeway.
Who cares what the actual data shows? Buses will succeed because Tom wants them to succeed.
As to the truth of global warming, once again Tom couldn’t care less about what the actual data is. He believes it is true, therefor it will someday be proven to be true.
Spoken like a true believer. (But not a believer in science.)
They should have known the obvious with EVs and heavy loads-
Why Are Electric Cars So Bad At Towing? (lifehacker.com.au)
It’s why they’re working hard on hydrogen tech for heavy transport earthmoving mining etc as battery tech will never cut it.
At least no fires yet. I read of similar problems elsewhere in the USA with competing brands. High maintenance, and range issues.
At least these ones didn’t catch fire.
https://notrickszone.com/2021/06/11/electric-bus-inferno-in-hanover-germany-explosive-fire-causes-millions-in-damages/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/06/12/electric-bus-inferno-in-hanover-germanyexplosive-fire-causes-millions-in-damages/
The purpose was to spend money on Green Energy. Mission accomplished.
As long as you’re not deluded enough to actually think “Green Energy” is actually “green.”
Come on. That’s a joke, right? No one designs a vehicle that can’t support its own power train. Do they?
Cracked carbon fibre chassis are a feature of formula one cars that ride the kerbs too much.
Like electric buses, they too are pushing the weight as low as they can.
Sounds like another obummer boondoggle with the company heading to bankruptcy.
giffie poo rank ignorance specious claims:
South Philly is not hilly at all. If the bus routes included the hillier parts of the city, they might have discovered the green fraud much much quicker.
Electric busses. We call ’em “trams” in these backwoods parts.
Or trolley busses.
Just piss poor engineering and maintenance I would bet didn’t help.. While I don’t like the nannyness of my wife’s coal powered Chevy Volt it just works and works well.
It is important to note the EV Industry messages, to begin that as volume sales increase these vehicles will become cheaper to buy … message from the renewable energy handbook. please consider what an EV really is, they are conventional vehicles or cars with battery system and electric motors replacing the internal combustion engine and drive train, not new technology for construction and suspension, brakes, etc. So compare the engineering and ask why EV is at the cheapest end more than double a conventional vehicle price. It’s the batteries of course, and ignoring disposal cost and environmental considerations as compared to recycling metals. And that a battery system weighs far more than a metal fuel tank full of fuel to travel the same distance.
Next that range is not important because the average car driver does 34 km a day … so explain why larger capacity and increasingly heavier and more expensive batteries are being offered, why not a 100 km range and savings resulting?
That the more EV sales increase the sooner a recharging network will grow in number of sites and number of charger points …. when Henry released his Model T Ford drivers could carry a couple of cans of “gasoline” on the running boards, what can EV drivers do if they travel to areas where no charging convenience is available?
Like all climate hoax programmes EV is the imperfect solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
In the event anyone wants to hear about real world hybrid car experience here is a bit.
When wife bought her Chevy Volt in 2014 we were ignorant of the battery fire potential.
However DDG doesn’t seem to know of any Volt fires in the wild.
It has two complete though interdependent power trains so the cost is high.
Judging from incident reports it is far better made than the Tesla.
At that time gasoline was $4/gal, and with the portion of our tax dollars the feds decided to let us retain as reward for buying the car, it made financial sense. Now with the current regime driving fuel prices back up again it (unfortunately) again makes financial sense. It made her 30mi commute up hill steep hills and down entirely on battery power even in cold (but not frigid) weather yet we regularly drive 1020mi down I-75 at 80mph to our escape pod in SW Florida. IMO having driven about half of the 90kmi on the Volt it is an excellent very conservatively engineered machine and with electric motor torque it is fun to drive. GM had to use high nickle brake rotors because they aren’t used much and would otherwise rust away… We don’t have a large family. We have an all electric house so the charging current doesn’t even show. And we won’t buy another hybrid/EV. I fear the day when it starts having problems as it can turn into an expensive driveway ornament in milliseconds as it cannot drive as a pure gasoline powered vehicle. No battery no go.
(My daily driver is a cute little low mileage 1984 GMC S15.)
Fixed it for you.
If they ever want to try something that actually works they should check out
wrightspeed.com
A drivetrain with electric for max torque at the low end and any one of a variety of fossil fuels to run the generator. Very slick and perfect for any large 3+ ton truck that makes a lot of stops. Garbage, recycling and busses come to mind.
Chattanooga, TN established a downtown loop that runs between the old railroad station and the aquarium, and another loop that goes across the river. Aside from an initial Federal transportation grant to start the electric shuttle bus system in the 1990’s, it’s been funded by a cut of the parking lot fees and donation boxes at the stations and on the shuttle buses. There’s no cost to ride them.
The initial buses used lead acid batteries. Those were either upgraded to NiCd or replaced with new buses. They’ve been phasing out the NiCd powered ones with new LiIon powered. New motor technology and other things make it impractical to replace the Nickel Cadmium batteries with Lithium Ion. Not much more $$$ for a whole new bus and of course a new bus doesn’t need a total rebuild after hundreds of thousands of miles.
The Lithium Ion powered buses can run the route all day (6:30 AM to 11:00 PM weekdays, shorter on weekends) where the Nickel Cadmium ones had to hit a charger for a while at least once a day and the Lead Acid ones required more frequent charging. IIRC they did battery pack swaps in about 30 minutes with the Lead Acid ones but the newer models no longer needed that. Regenerative braking going downhill from the stop at the railroad station, and at every stop on the loop, likely helps that endurance.
This whole climate alarmist enterprise is a Barbarossa against reality.
No matter how many resources they commit, it wont be anywhere near enough.
And Stalingrad is waiting at the end of the road.
It’ll be fun to watch though.