Washington Free Beacon by Matthew Foldi • July 23, 2021
An electric bus manufactured by Proterra caught fire while charging in a southern California city that is now considering taking the electric buses off the road, according to government records.
The Foothill Transit agency, which serves the valleys surrounding Los Angeles, will decide on Friday whether costly Proterra buses purchased in the last decade are still operable. Problems cited by the agency include not only the bus that caught fire in what's described as a "thermal event," but also buses that melt in the California heat and have transmission failures. Roland Cordero, the agency's director of maintenance and vehicle technology, says the problems with the buses are exacerbated by Proterra's inability to help with repairs.
"With the number of failures we are experiencing and the inability of Proterra to provide parts, these [Battery Electric Buses] BEBs will only get worse as we continue to operate them whenever the BEBs are available for service," Cordero wrote ahead of Friday's executive board meeting, where the agency will debate taking Proterra buses out of service.
The electric bus company, which has been hailed by the Biden administration as the future of mass transportation, has seen its stock plummet in the last month as reports pile up about problems with its product. In Philadelphia, mechanical failures and weak battery performance forced city officials to shelve buses received as recently as 2019. In Duluth, Minnesota, the buses were taken off the road because their brakes couldn't handle the city's hills. The publicly known failings of Proterra's buses have not deterred key members of the Biden administration, including the president himself, from touting the company on multiple occasions.
More:
https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/proterra-bus-fire-prompts-california-agency-to-consider-shelving-electric-bus-fleet/