Many U.S. cities are grappling with broken-down electric transit vehicles that cannot be fixed, months after the largest E-bus manufacturer filed for bankruptcy.
Another company just bought Proterra, so hopefully any of their busses will be up and running again shortly. Still not great that they’d be out of service so soon after being built though. There are less moving parts in an electric vehicle so you have to wonder how they screwed this up.
That’s good news - such shit that a badly managed company can leave taxpayers holding the bag like that.
Idk tho, busses get the shit beat out of them… I’ve known some bus mechanics and most of what they do is suspension/breaks and like aircon type shit, the drivetrain is only a part of the job.
Just speculating wildly for fun - I wonder if it’s just that they didn’t design with off the shelf parts so once they went under nobody could get their specific suspension bits or whatever the hell got busted.
I do agree that software issues so quickly does indicate some fuckery, though. Also the fact that they went under lmao
Edit: Lool I missed this paragraph: “The lawyers told the court Broward County purchased 42 buses from Proterra for $54 million, and the first batch only operated for an average of 600 miles before breaking down, while the second batch averaged 1,800. For comparison, the county’s diesel buses average 4,500 between failures, the filing said.”
I’m sure most of the bus was parts off the shelf. The electronics to power the motors, which probably failed due to vibrations are not off the shelf equipment.
As far as mechanics the difference between an electric and combustion is the engine. Engines are fairly reliable so from a matience standpoint there’s not a lot of work on them. Everything else is more or less the same. The problem is a new company comes in and doesn’t have the experience to build a bus as durably.
The largest difference is right now many electric cars are units swaps. If a motor goes bad, they swap the whole motor. They don’t rebuild or repair it.
It’s why the a battery issue is so expensive. They don’t repair it. They replace it.
Another company just bought Proterra, so hopefully any of their busses will be up and running again shortly. Still not great that they’d be out of service so soon after being built though. There are less moving parts in an electric vehicle so you have to wonder how they screwed this up.
That’s good news - such shit that a badly managed company can leave taxpayers holding the bag like that.
Idk tho, busses get the shit beat out of them… I’ve known some bus mechanics and most of what they do is suspension/breaks and like aircon type shit, the drivetrain is only a part of the job.
Just speculating wildly for fun - I wonder if it’s just that they didn’t design with off the shelf parts so once they went under nobody could get their specific suspension bits or whatever the hell got busted.
I do agree that software issues so quickly does indicate some fuckery, though. Also the fact that they went under lmao
Edit: Lool I missed this paragraph: “The lawyers told the court Broward County purchased 42 buses from Proterra for $54 million, and the first batch only operated for an average of 600 miles before breaking down, while the second batch averaged 1,800. For comparison, the county’s diesel buses average 4,500 between failures, the filing said.”
Yikes. That’s pretty bad lol.
I’m sure most of the bus was parts off the shelf. The electronics to power the motors, which probably failed due to vibrations are not off the shelf equipment.
As far as mechanics the difference between an electric and combustion is the engine. Engines are fairly reliable so from a matience standpoint there’s not a lot of work on them. Everything else is more or less the same. The problem is a new company comes in and doesn’t have the experience to build a bus as durably.
The largest difference is right now many electric cars are units swaps. If a motor goes bad, they swap the whole motor. They don’t rebuild or repair it.
It’s why the a battery issue is so expensive. They don’t repair it. They replace it.