They tried electric buses in Connecticut. Because of their tendency to burst into flames, the entire fleet was pulled from service. They tried them in Wyoming. At last word, none works. Edmonton blew a fortune on 60 electric buses. Most of those don’t work either. Turns out electric vehicles don’t make sense in the cold. Naturally the next step was to try them in frigid Minnesota:

In 2015, Duluth received a $6.3 million federal grant for six, ultimately seven, battery-electric buses from Proterra.

Proterra has gone bankrupt, leaving customers trying to keep their vehicles running in the lurch.

In Minneapolis,

Metro Transit followed in 2017 when it received a $1.7 million federal grant to buy eight battery-electric accordion buses…

They got free money and saved the allegedly imperiled climate from harmless carbon emissions. Everyone lived happily ever after — until reality set in:

Both the Twin Cities and Duluth have had problems with their battery-electric buses. For one, they can’t go as far as their builders advertised, in part because of the cold weather.

Too bad the global warming hoax isn’t real. If temperatures would rise by more than the current insignificant fluctuations, EVs would be less insane.

Metro Transit’s battery-electric buses are also less reliable than their diesel-fueled counterparts. A September 2023 presentation to the Met Council’s Transportation Committee showed the battery-electric buses broke down twice as often.

The outlandishly expensive batteries frequently fail, as do the chargers.

Duluth also had problems with its battery-electric bus fleet. Between April 2019 and February 2020, the fleet averaged 7,717 miles between breakdowns, four times as often compared to their diesel counterparts. … The buses struggled to make it up the city’s storied steep hills and to keep riders warm in the winter.

The federal government continues to throw our money at the quixotic cause of electrifying buses in frozen Minnesota:

In August, the Federal Transit Administration awarded Metro Transit a $17.5 million grant to buy 12 battery-electric buses…

Since Duluth and Metro Transit rode the electric wave, other agencies joined in on the current. With $5.4 million from two federal grants, Rochester placed into service four battery-electric buses of the exact same make and model as Metro Transit’s…

Another federal grant for electric buses in Minnesota will cost us $8.1 million.

It’s almost as if our rulers couldn’t care less how hard we have to work to create the wealth they waste.

On tips from ABC of the ANC and Skip.

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