Green energy gonna save us…
Or not… At least in Philly… $24 million in electric buses (apparently about $1 M each) less than five years old are now off the road!
The entire fleet of Proterra buses was removed from the roads by SEPTA, the city’s transit authority, in February 2020 due to both structural and logistical problems—the weight of the powerful battery was cracking the vehicles’ chassis, and the battery life was insufficient for the city’s bus routes. The city raised the issues with Proterra, which failed to adequately address the city’s concerns.
Full article, HERE.
Apparently, this is one of those little oopsies like lack of mileage, no charging stations, etc. But this is supposed to be our future?
Guess it’s time to invest in some good cow ponies. At least they are fairly cheap to operate, but the lack of trunk space and no AC are gonna be a PITA (in addition to the PITA from riding any distance at my age)…
I really wonder if any of these cities that are going down the ‘green energy’ rathole are actually doing the due diligence they should be on these ‘products’. Wind, solar, electric cars?
How are they going to charge them? Look at what happened in Texas with the freeze… Wind was frozen, solar was snow covered, propane froze because the feeds were ‘supposedly’ green powered, which shut them down, etc. The ONLY clean energy is nuclear, but that’s bad… sigh
Where does this end? How many must die before some people come to their senses and stop trying to placate the left and say we need to actually have stable power, and vehicles that go more than 300 miles without having to be charged (hint-gas/diesel powered)?
And now that manufacturers are stepping away from building cars, people are wanting to not allow John Q. Public to be able to buy a pickup truck because they are ‘dangerous and carbon negative polluters)…
Kicking the soapbox back in the corner and looking for my BP meds.
Madison, WI Fire Dept just joyfully received the first electric fire engine in the USA. Range: 30 miles. The FD Chief gushed about the range being perfect for their needs. I’m guessing mutual-assistance calls to other cities will be a thing of the icky carbon-based past. Progress! Oh, it also
has a 300-hp diesel genny on board, just in case.
If it can only go 30 miles, how many hours (minutes?) can it pump before it runs out of energy? After that point, how do they put out the (still burning) fire.
THAT’S what the 300 hp diesel is for.
My grandfather grew up in Kansas City just after the turn of the 20th century and he had memories of road gangs from the county lockup dealing with green energy.
Cut off any special funding for this madness and it goes away.
As far as the taxpayers of the cities, those that care are far outnumbered by those that haven’t a clue, or will up the rent to pay the higher taxes.
In the end, and the cities are bankrupted, those that thought they had a guaranteed pension will find pennies on the dollar, when those that control the goods agree to a plan that allows them to recover their costs. Those that profited will watch from a distance, or are mourned by their families that still enjoy the wealth.
After a gushing article about how electric airplanes will be the key to expanding aviation and winning friends for flight, several letters to the publication wanted to know who was going to keep all those extension cords untangled. You know, the miles-long cords needed for in-flight recharging? Then people asked about battery weight, flying haz-mat in training aircraft . . .
An idea whose time has not come, and will not for the foreseeable future. In other words, a trendy solution desperately seeking the wrong problem.
They should look at a map of airborne aircraft over the US at any given time and imagining a percentage of them becoming gliders, er, rocks, after weather or traffic holds exhaust their batteries. Got to come down somewhere — on whose house, or place of business?
Once again, it’s policy driven by ideology, not by task-conditions-standard.
I’m sure one day there will be efficient and affordable electric vehicles. But the hard fact is we’re not there yet. We don’t have the battery tech, or the power generation and recharging technology, to make them competitive with ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles.
I can only guess SEPTA went with battery electric buses for ideological reasons, either their own or those of their political masters. For proven options, they could have gone for diesel or natural gas buses on the cheap side, or if being “green” was so important they could have gone for electric trolley buses, which are more expensive but mature. It isn’t like they don’t have the experience.
SEPTA operated electric trolley buses for decades, and inherited them from the transit company who’d been operating them for decades before that. ETB’s may have their limitations, but they’re mature technology. Many modern ETB’s generally have some limited battery capability in case they need to get around accidents or road construction, or temporary problems with the overhead power.
To answer one question, the purchase of the electric buses was politically driven by the Woke Leftist. They don’t care if something is suitable as long as it checks off their “green” needs.
As to how many people need to be dead before this is over, the Leftist would like to see at least 90% of the population (preferably the whole World’s population) dead. If not that then at least that many Americans gone. Then they think they will have their “Utopia”. No they will just have Hell on Earth living like people did a few thousand years ago.
Robert/Steve- Oh yeah… no mutual response at all… And good luck in a rural area!
Jim- That got done a lot!
Jess- That’s why wind farm companies go bankrupt every 10 years- The subsidies stop.
TXRed- Gah, yes! How about holding for an hour to land? Not so much…
Toast- Ah yes, TCS, rather than ideology, what a NOVEL idea! I did some battery testing for the Navy in my prior career. Interesting things happen when you test to destruction…
TOS- There you go making sense again! Yes, political pandering at its finest there!
Bill- Concur. Glad I’m old and live in a rural area!
I read the article. This project is every bit as FUBAR as the Denver airport baggage handling fiasco. Only, as it turns out, a bit more expensive.
I’m betting that somewhere during the project planning there was a technician who pointed out that the vehicle frame wouldn’t bear the weight of the battery bank, and was told to shut up.
I’ve worked with engineering departments as a computer support tech and a programmer / analyst, and I can assure you that projects like this one happen, and are often derailed by someone on the Board of Directors who takes one hard look at it, throws his coffee cup against the wall, and cancels it with extreme prejudice.
What actually bothers me is that our elected officials were too stupid to actually see this one coming.
Whenever possible I ask “greenies”, how much cobalt is needed in the electric and hybrid vehicles? Mostly I get blank stares. About 60 lbs on average, I explain. Next, I ask them why they support child slavery? They are sooo offended. If we are still talking, I explain 90% of the world’s cobalt comes from Africa, mined by children in Chinese owned mines. Damned if I will let them off the hook.
Keep up the good work, WSF!
Good work WSF!
I, by the way, and I know how hard this is to believe, but I actually learned something from your post. I had no idea about cobalt, the amount needed, Africa, child labor, and China.
Thanks for the post.
When the ransomware attack shut down gasoline here in the metro Atlanta area, my high school student launched into a ballad of praise for the electric car, and the short-sightedness of petroleum companies.
When I asked him how the power to recharge those electric cars was to be generated in the absence of fossil fuels, his mouth went “CLICK!” as it slammed shut. I don’t think he had ever heard that issue addressed before. It produced a teachable moment.
I think it’s a good thing to reduce dangerous stuff dumped into the atmosphere and water. Yay, us! for doing that. Or, to be more specific, YAY! for the scientists and engineers and technicians for doing that. And YAY! for the industrialists who made money and funded it.
And BOO! to people who don’t know how to design a bus to work in Philadelphia, and BOO! to people who buy those buses.
Good job, Pat.
What can I say, except “The STUPID is STRONG in these ones…”
One of the blogs/boards I read is a semi-machinist blog/board and somehow on one of the discussion links it turned into a thing about Electric Vehicles being oh so much faster yada yada yada.
And then some twit from the Netherlands got on about how wonderful small 2-3 person EVs are, and why the range issue isn’t an issue when one’s country has a very mature mass-transit system.
I shut the twit down HARD by looking up the stats of country size vs, well, Florida size. How long it takes to drive from one tip (Key West) to the other (Pensacola-Mobile Bay) and then comparing it to his wonderful country. And the size of his cities vs our cities, and how far one may have to run when the levees break in his country and how far we have to drive to get out of storm paths here.
He actually didn’t realize that one day the levees will be breached by a thousand-year storm/flood combination.
Yeah, EVs work, when they do. But when they don’t, well, you die.
Die stuck in traffic, die when the batteries catch on fire, die when the temperature is 110 degrees and the car doesn’t want to run in heat, or it’s 60 below and…
Infernal combustion is still the way to go. And nowhere are EVs more affordable than ICVs except where the EVs are tax-supported directly or indirectly.
Idiots.
There you go again, operating on facts. I remember when I was in training and was told that trying to meaningfully communicate with a drunk with logic is a waster of time — no parallel communication path. I find discussion with true leftists much the same. Silence received, yes, but change of mind, no. Happy to hear of the effort, however. 🙂
I think that it would be a good idea to attach one of those big, honking, windmills to each charging station. They shouldn’t be attached to the grid. If the wind blows, you can recharge your ride. If not, hitchhike, and trust in the charity of others to get you to work.
My opinion about green energy ic that what they want is control. They don’t want the average person to travel, they have their private jets. They don’t care if you can go to work, you have to do what they say if you are on the dole. If you are freezing in the dark, move to a government resettlement camp! Some of the elite are saying the earths population needs to get down to five hundred million, they don’t care how many they kill! I’m a little pessimistic.
A neighbor was bragging on her new e-car. I referred to it as “atomic powered.”
What?
Well, we’re on the grid powered by the North/South Anna nuclear power stations.
Her husband later came over and asked WHAT THE HELL DID YOU SAY TO HER?!?
Seems he came home to find his wife on the phone with the power company DEMANDING they only send Green Electricity down to her house.
Yeah, too much fun but when they’re that stupid you just HAVE to take advantage of it.
Unfortunately too many of the stupid ones end up in elective office.
Job well done!
very good. I needed a laugh this morning. and then I realized I know people as smart as her!
Bra-VO!
“Where does this end? How many must die?”
How many green energy asshole have you got?
*forgive me for putting words in your mouth.
All- Thanks for the comments, and yes, they never ‘think’ about the reality behind EVs… LL- LOVE your idea! Snerk…
Secretary of Energy Granholm (Michigan’s now 2nd worst governor) had quite a stake in Proterra at the time it was being touted and funded by the Feds and made bank on it being supported by the government. Funny how that regularly happens with Democrats backing these allegedly green energy schemes with public funds for their private profit. Solyndra anyone?
Cobalt and other exotic metals mined by child labor in Africa. Transported by oil fired boiler or huge diesel powered freighter to US or Japan to be refined. Metal transported (more ships) to China to manufacture the batteries. Batteries (and possibly the cars themselves) transported by more ships and/or diesel/electric rail or diesel car transporter (semi). Then you recharge in your home charging station powered in most places by a coal fired power plant.
I call them coal powered cars (80% of electric generation in my part of the country).
You can drive a Hummer and consume less petroleum than it takes just to get an electric car to a dealer.
In California, Pruneface Pelosi’s nephew, Gavin Newsom, is trying to jam electric vehicles down our throats. In the next breath he tells us to expect rolling blackouts all summer long. I guess there isn’t enough electricity to both charge those cars and give free electricity to all of those illegals he’s dinner-belling in… When Newsom dies, scientists need to pickle his brain, study it, and find out just what the hell went wrong…
And get a load of the “self-driving” cars! Don’t people realize that if YOU can tell the car to go wherever you want it to go, so can Big Brother? If Tesla can update its software over-the-air, real time, how hard would it be to say to the car “You’re not leaving the city limits”? The possibilities are endless!