Britain’s e-bus ticking timebomb: How nearly TWO THOUSAND electric buses worth £800m face urgent recall over fears they could see burst into flames

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

h/t Patsy Lacey

From The Mail:

Safety watchdogs have ordered the recall of almost 2,000 electric buses over fears they can catch fire if left unattended.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency has warned operators who use the Alexander Dennis Enviro200 and Enviro400 single and double decker buses of the critical safety issue.

The buses are currently operational across the UK, with more than 600 in London and a further 100 in Manchester.

All of the affected vehicles were manufactured between May 3, 2019 and February 6, 2024. They all contain batteries supplied by Chinese firm BYD. 

Initial investigations suggest the fault may be in the air conditioning and heating system. The alert was issued following a scare on board one of the buses – which can cost up to £450,000 each – putting the value of the entire fleet at £800m.

At present, there is no permanent solution to prevent future fires. Instead, operators using the high-tech buses are warned to ‘switch off the Hipsacold HVAC system when the vehicle is left unattended’. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13141825/Britains-e-bus-ticking-timebomb-nearly-TWO-THOUSAND-electric-buses-worth-800m-face-urgent-recall-fears-burst-flames.html#newcomment

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Denis
March 4, 2024 10:05 am

Worth 800 million? Don’t you mean costing 800 million? There is a difference you know.

March 4, 2024 10:06 am

Those buses aren’t worth 800 thousand pounds, that what was paid for them. They’re probably worth 200 thousand pounds.

Reply to  Dennis Gerald Sandberg
March 4, 2024 10:39 am

Maybe in scrap which is all they’re worth

Scissor
Reply to  Redge
March 4, 2024 10:57 am

Gas chambers were always more efficient.

Reply to  Dennis Gerald Sandberg
March 6, 2024 5:45 pm

Anyone know their WEIGHT? Road damage occurring?

March 4, 2024 10:09 am

You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs, right?

What does £800m for defective buses really amount to when you’re saving the world and congratulating yourself for spending other people’s money so wisely? You can always print more money but how many chances do you get to feel so damn good about yourself?

Reply to  More Soylent Green!
March 4, 2024 10:25 am

Soylent, someone with your name should be well aware of the program….
Taxpayer dollars are never wasted. They just get moved on to someone else so they can be taxed again. The faster they can spin the cash off to someone else, the better off we all are collectively.
Modern economic theory, especially loved by politicians who want to do good (buy votes) with other people’s money in order to get elected.

March 4, 2024 10:31 am

Use public transport, they said. It’s safer for all of us and better for the environment, they said… 🤣

MyUsername
Reply to  Richard Page
March 4, 2024 11:14 am

Still true.

missoulamike
Reply to  MyUsername
March 4, 2024 11:30 am

Not if your ilk are involved in any fashion….

MarkW
Reply to  MyUsername
March 4, 2024 11:43 am

Never true, but that is what you have been told to believe.

Gary Pearse
Reply to  MyUsername
March 4, 2024 12:53 pm

Is there anything at all that the planet savers do that you would criticize. I’m cataloguing types and degrees of support of new world order backers. Remember, before you give a knee-jerk answer, that even Einstein made a mistake.

MyUsername
Reply to  Gary Pearse
March 5, 2024 1:49 am

That has nothing to do with planet saving. Public Transport is positive for society (for example Freedom of movement for people who can’t drive) and for urban spaces (Reduction in Traffic leads to less (noise) pollution and safer streets.)

It’s sad to see the car lobby being so successful to sell people on being stuck in traffic in their 3t tin can as some kind of ultimate freedom. And they get them to pay premium for it.

There are places where motorized individual traffic is advantagous, but the knee-jerk reaction of public transport bad is stupid.

Reply to  MyUsername
March 5, 2024 11:06 am

You misunderstand, nobody here is saying that public transport is inherently bad. Public transport that has a tendency to burst into flames, however, is.

Mikeyj
Reply to  Richard Page
March 4, 2024 12:57 pm

Who is “they”?

Mikeyj
Reply to  Mikeyj
March 4, 2024 1:01 pm

Sorry, its “my username”

Reply to  Mikeyj
March 4, 2024 1:57 pm

Izzat you, mylittlepony? Well, it’s a humorous saying, almost always ironic, in which the ‘they’ are never identified, but left to the imagination of the reader. If you’ve never come across jokes or humorous sayings in this form before then I can only assume you’ve been reading the wrong books, if you’ve been reading books at all.

Bryan A
Reply to  Richard Page
March 4, 2024 4:16 pm

So the Metaphorical “They” and not the Moronical “They” of big government

Reply to  Bryan A
March 4, 2024 6:19 pm

Up to you really. One of the earliest examples I’ve seen was ‘Join the Army, they said, it’ll be fun, they said…’

MarkW
Reply to  Richard Page
March 4, 2024 4:27 pm

We are not amused.

mleskovarsocalrrcom
March 4, 2024 10:51 am

The unintended consequences keep pouring in.

John Aqua
March 4, 2024 11:07 am

One more nail in the coffin of this EV abomination. The hits just keep rolling in.

Gary Pearse
Reply to  John Aqua
March 4, 2024 1:24 pm

Yeah, but woke climateers have been wrong about everything so far. They just adjust the data when they need to hide the problem. When it was shown that wildfires in California and Australia were not increasing, they can count on useful idiot arsonists to set multiple fires.

https://apnews.com/article/wildfires-fires-california-arson-f8eecede62bf34c86a806ab76ff0d8d4

https://news.yahoo.com/man-pleads-guilty-setting-nearly-042523707.html

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-quebec-man-facing-arson-charges-in-northern-wildfires-detained-ahead/

Rud Istvan
March 4, 2024 11:10 am

Broward Transit Authority is transitioning to all diesel electric hybrids here around Fort Lauderdale. Big Fuel and maintenance savings (brake jobs). The average cost is $545k (mix of 40’ and 60’ articulated), so about like the UK BEB fleet. Advantage is our hybrids don’t catch fire.

Reply to  Rud Istvan
March 4, 2024 11:16 am

“…Advantage is our hybrids don’t catch fire…”

Don’t catch fire yet.

Rud Istvan
Reply to  Fraizer
March 4, 2024 11:30 am

We have had them for now several years and none have.

Reply to  Rud Istvan
March 4, 2024 12:29 pm

<deleted>

Reply to  Rud Istvan
March 4, 2024 2:48 pm

What type of battery?

Reply to  Rud Istvan
March 4, 2024 2:05 pm

Does the diesel engine have a DPF/burner system next to the engine? Those systems in some Jaguar Landrover cars, in particular, have been known to initiate vehicle fires as well.

strativarius
March 4, 2024 11:16 am

They never did beat the Routemaster bus.

They were great

tinny
March 4, 2024 11:29 am

How does leaving them unattended contribute to them catching fire?
Does hiding your eyes count?

Writing Observer
Reply to  tinny
March 4, 2024 1:52 pm

Haven’t you heard of quantum physics?

</sarc>

J Boles
March 4, 2024 11:44 am

But the Toyota Prius has been around for a long time, no fires, why does it have a good record but then BEV always catch fire? Same type of battery, Lithium Ion, right? Better cooled in the Prius?

Rud Istvan
Reply to  J Boles
March 4, 2024 12:08 pm

Old Prius were NiMH like my hybrid Escape. New Prius are LiIon. Much smaller than a bus battery

Reply to  J Boles
March 4, 2024 12:09 pm

Smaller battery and lower drawdown and charging stress?

michael hart
Reply to  Frank from NoVA
March 4, 2024 12:22 pm

Probably.
As I often point out, higher energy density in batteries will move them from being a fire hazard to an explosion hazard. We may already be very close to the safe practical limit.

Rud Istvan
Reply to  Frank from NoVA
March 4, 2024 12:25 pm

All hybrids float the traction battery charge around something plus minus 50%. In my Escape, it is 45-55. Maxes battery life. Any EV battery goes from near100 to perhaps 20%. Much more stressful on both charge and discharge.

Bob
March 4, 2024 12:50 pm

My hometown has a buss system. It is worthless in my view. Yes it has electric busses in the fleet. I can tell it’s worthless because the busses were almost always nearly empty even with a modest fare. There is no way they were paying for themselves. They made them fare free and they are still mostly empty. They judge their success by how much their ridership has increased so if ridership increased from five riders to ten ridership has doubled and the system is a success. People wonder why I have such low respect for government, it starts with stuff like this.

Reply to  Bob
March 6, 2024 12:37 pm

I have noticed that as well. Empty busses driving around endlessly.

ResourceGuy
March 4, 2024 1:01 pm

And don’t forget bankruptcy of the bus mfg suppliers as in cases in the U.S.

Edward Katz
March 4, 2024 2:12 pm

This is the result when federal, provincial state or municipal jurisdictions become unrealistically gung-ho about products and practices that have no proven extended track records. Even worse, it’s inevitably the consumers who take the hit since it’s their tax dollars that are wasted in the process and they’re left with a shortfall in the services that such buses were supposed to have provided.

March 4, 2024 2:54 pm

Initial investigations suggest the fault may be in the air conditioning and heating system.

That’s a new dodgy design. It’s on EV buses because they are new. But it would affect diesels too.

The air con and heating are add-ons to an EV. This is not a green issue.

Reply to  MCourtney
March 4, 2024 8:57 pm

I was going to say roughly the same thing – they’ll just upgrade the wiring to the HVAC unit, maybe dial back it’s power usage to limit the strain on the batteries, and the buses can be back on the road.

However, it wouldn’t affect diesel buses by default – they are established designs. The EV buses were designed from the ground up so as to save weight and manufacturing costs, but unfortunately cut the safety margins.

Moral of story don’t be the first on your block to buy into anything!

Reply to  observa
March 4, 2024 8:58 pm

So the honeymoon is over already.

Ads for generators on the same page: “be prepared!”

observa
March 4, 2024 4:32 pm

A meeting of the minds from Landsend to landfill-
MGUY interviews Lee, The MacMaster! Let’s go! | MGUY Australia (youtube.com)
And if you climate changers think Gummint Groupthink knows best just remember it wasn’t so long ago the brains trust was telling us all to go diesel to save the planet and oops!

Rip out all the taxes excise subsidies and derivatives and let’s tax pneumatic tyres as a level playing field proxy eh?
Electric cars release more toxic emissions than petrol-powered vehicles and are worse for the environment (msn.com)
LOL.

Ed Zuiderwijk
March 5, 2024 12:37 am

Eco Junk is the term we are looking for.

Exploding buses, disintegrating windmills, fading solar panels and demented politicians.

Sparta Nova 4
March 5, 2024 12:38 pm

So it is ok to risk the fires only if the bus is occupied?

spren
March 6, 2024 2:07 pm

They should’ve realized the danger when they saw the producer was China BYD. BYD stands for Burn You Down.