$96 Million to Nowhere: The Predictable Failure of Subsidized Electric Buses

https://www.local10.com/news/local/2026/04/14/local-10-examines-why-expensive-electric-buses-sit-in-disrepair-in-miami-dade-broward/ The story begins, as these things often do, with an image that requires very little interpretation—rows of modern electric buses sitting still under the Florida sun, not in service, but in storage. Some are parked in long lines at the Homestead Air Reserve Base. Others have already reached a more final destination. According to a Local 10 News investigation, “Ninet...

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bnice2000

April 16, 2026 6:47 pm

Is that pic real?

No way I would be parking that many defunct EV buses that close to each other !!

Herman Pope

Reply to bnice2000

April 16, 2026 8:39 pm

These EV buses are worse than useless, why does it matter how close together they are parked? How much more would it cost to store each buss in a different place where a smaller battery fire could be contained?

bnice2000

Reply to Herman Pope

April 16, 2026 11:16 pm

Was thinking more about the surrounding environment..

Just make sure they are parked in a heavily Democrat area. !

gaz

Reply to Herman Pope

April 17, 2026 2:28 pm

Maybe they are insured and hoping for a fire

John Hultquist

Reply to bnice2000

April 16, 2026 9:03 pm

Top photo appears fake. Second one seems to be from the news source WPLG, an independent television station in Miami.

Denis

Reply to John Hultquist

April 17, 2026 6:21 am

Perhaps the batteries have been removed?

Tom Johnson

Reply to bnice2000

April 17, 2026 5:39 am

It makes sense to me: once one self-immolates, they will all be gone!

Bryan A

Reply to bnice2000

April 17, 2026 5:42 am

Why not? A fire in one equals a claim for all!

MarkW

Reply to bnice2000

April 17, 2026 7:44 am

I was thinking the same thing, then I noticed the Local 10 logo in the bottom right corner.
If it’s fake, it was generated by Local 10.

Bryan A

Reply to MarkW

April 17, 2026 7:18 pm

Much like the “CNN” Diet Ads on Farcebook the image is AI generated. Note ALL the busses are slightly different sized and all have unique roof ornament sizes and shapes.
It may or may not be a Local 10 story but the image is a generated image

KevinM

April 16, 2026 8:10 pm

I count maybe 50 busses, “As of 2024, the population of the city of Miami, Florida, is estimated to be approximately 487,014”.

Duker

April 16, 2026 10:01 pm

The reason for 90% of M-D electric buses are out of service is the manufacturer Proterra went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and the spares service is now non existent. They were lemons to start with is probably why CH-11 was used.

Bryan A

Reply to Duker

April 17, 2026 5:44 am

At least Lemons can be used to make lemonade.
The best you could do with these is to make Smores.

Rod Evans

April 16, 2026 11:02 pm

Each bus is holding a 500kWh battery in its chassis. That must be useful for something?
Maybe they can drive them over to the local solar array park and use them as battery back up to help provide peak demand for power when the sun isn’t above the horizon?
How many of these mobile battery storage buses have they got, looking for something useful to do?

ToldYouSo

Reply to Rod Evans

April 17, 2026 7:43 am

“That must be useful for something?”

1) Costs of safely and environmentally-compliant disassembling and recovering precious metals/rare earths from the batteries far exceeds the resale value of such.

2) The demonstrated history and risk of large kWh capacity batteries catching fire likely makes any future reuse uninsurable.

3) If the buses were indeed moved to some deemed-feasible use location (excluding solar or wind farm battery backup), that same location would need the infrastructure to recharge one or more 500 kWh batteries in a reasonable amount of time, say from midnight to 8 am local time.

ToldYouSo

Reply to ToldYouSo

April 17, 2026 9:10 am

Ahhh . . . those downvotes to my above posted remind me that I did forget to also mention the following facts as obtained from Google’s AI bot:

“Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries should be kept above a minimum depth of discharge (DoD) to avoid permanent damage and maximize lifespan. While they can handle deep discharges, regularly draining them to 0% induces chemical and structural stress, often leading to capacity loss, increased resistance, or “dead” batteries.
Key Recommendations for Lithium-Ion Battery Health:
— Optimal Daily Usage: Keep the battery charge state (SoC) between 20% and 80%, avoiding full 100% charges and deep 0% discharges to extend its lifespan.
— Avoid Complete Discharge: Letting a battery drop below 2.5 volts per cell can cause safety circuits to trip, rendering the battery unusable.”

So, indeed, I should have questioned if all those parked/storage-yard buses have really been continuously maintained per the above recommendations . . . and if not, who wants to obtain and use already-damaged batteries?

Gregg Eshelman

April 17, 2026 12:38 am

One more time. To understand how to do electric busses right, look to Chattanooga, TN. They’ve had free to ride electric shuttle buses running since 1992. Aside from the initial federal DOT grant, they’ve been funded from donation boxes on every bus, at the two stations, and a cut of downtown parking meter and lot fees.

There’s one station at the old railroad station, a second station across the road from the aquarium. Between the two stations the buses run a loop on two streets, covering the main downtown area. The second loop is the touristy one which crosses the river to the east and comes back to that station.

The first buses used lead acid batteries. IIRC they’ve gone through NiCd, NiMh, and in 2015 there were almost finished transitioning to Li-Ion. With the lead acid batteries they had a quick change garage at the railroad station but that quit being used as newer chemistries allowed running most of a day with short top ups then overnight charging. The Li-Ion batteries had the capacity to run all day.

The buses have air suspension so when they stop the whole bus drops to put the bottom step at curb level.

The buses have been made by Advanced Vehicle Systems from the start, but googling on this turned up that CARTA has bought at least three buses from BYD (Build Your Dreams) USA.

-9

Joseph Zorzin

Reply to Gregg Eshelman

April 17, 2026 4:38 am

I can only wonder – what the total cost/mile/person is.

Bryan A

Reply to Gregg Eshelman

April 17, 2026 5:46 am

The BEST Electric Busses have no batteries but get their power from Fossil Fueled OH wires.

ToldYouSo

Reply to Gregg Eshelman

April 17, 2026 7:46 am

That’s a nice story. Got any more?

Jeff Alberts

Reply to Gregg Eshelman

April 17, 2026 1:26 pm

BYD = Chinese

gaz

Reply to Gregg Eshelman

April 17, 2026 2:32 pm

In China, years ago, I have seen electric buses which had small batteries but engaged the power supply via roof collectors at each major stop getting repeatedly topped up. Not a bad solution on dense inner city routes

bnice2000

Reply to gaz

April 17, 2026 6:39 pm

Newcastle, Australia, inner-city lite-rail does the same thing.

Only 2.7km end to end, but quite useful.

Only used it once, just for fun, but it does get pretty good patronage.

Michael S. Kelly

Reply to gaz

April 17, 2026 6:55 pm

That reminds me of the Oerlikon Gyrobus, developed by the Swiss technology firm in the 1940s with the goal of providing quiet, emission free transport in areas having certain route infrastructure. The Gyrobus stored energy in a 3,000 rpm flywheel, spun up by an electric motor/generator fed by three roof mounted booms which connected to discrete charge points located at each stopping point. The maximum distance between charges was around 6 km, and the speed was 50 to 60 km/hr, depending on grade and passenger load. Two gyrobuses provided commercial service from 1953 to 1960 in Switzerland, and export versions saw limited service in Leopoldville, Belgian Congo and in Ghent, Belgium. These were heavy vehicles, which damaged roads, consumed significantly more energy than an IC vehicle, and proved to be extremely high maintenance – and thus low availability – transports. They didn’t last long. Despite the market failure of the Gyrobus, the Department of Energy in 1979 contracted General Motors to develop a prototype gyrobus. I don’t know if one was ever built.

Denis

April 17, 2026 6:19 am

“None are inherently unworkable.” It seems to me that wind and solar power to enable and sustain a grid are in fact unworkable. Their intermittency and unpredictably present grid control problems that likely cannot be corrected. Many writers have noted that a black start of a grid from wind, solar and batteries alone is not possible. Have the two “test” wind/solar islands, El Hierro and King, ever experienced a blackout and been able to restart their grids without their diesels? How about a test? Such a test would help determine whether or not wind and solar are fully sustainable as many claim.

ToldYouSo

April 17, 2026 7:28 am

The above article (just the synopsis) invites the question:

Did the Florida counties of Miami-Dade and Broward get $96 million worth of virtue signaling from their purchases of these EV buses?

Edward Katz

April 17, 2026 2:25 pm

This is no surprise since Quebec withdrew these types of vehicles from school bus service due to reliability issues pertaining to interior heating, among other things. They couldn’t keep students warm enough, nor could their ranges be depended upon during cold periods. In the end, the province went back back to gas/diesel types and taxpayers were left footing the cost for vehicles that couldn’t deliver. Mind you, this is typical for Quebec: always willing to jump on an environmental bandwagon once it sees the rest of Canada and the US has rejected it.

Michael S. Kelly

April 17, 2026 6:57 pm

This is a great article by virtue of its illustrating real-world economic principles with a very clear-cut case study. Learn the principles, everyone. And elect people who will obey them.