Buses built by Lion Electric are bursting into flames across the fruited plains. The fires have prompted a local transportation company providing bus service to a Vermont school district to discontinue use.
After reported fires in Lion Electric buses across the country, Student Transportation of Vermont removed Barre Town’s buses for safety precautions. They reached out to the company for answers but have not heard back.
Is this a variant form of EVD? Electric Vehicle Dysfunction. The primary cause of the disease, which 90% of EV owners report having, is that they won’t be able to find a place to charge their EV if they leave home. I observed that this was the point. Keep you at home. Besides, EV charging infrastructure grants are a way to launder billions of dollars into politically friendly hands while producing almost nothing. They earmark it for charging stations, and the money disappears, but few, if any, get built. [Related: District Spends Millions on E-Buses, to Spend Millions More on Diesel Buses That Work.]
EV School buses are likewise something of a unicorn. Enviro-fantasists imagine a world with trucks, snow plows, dump trucks, heavy construction equipment, and school buses, all powered by lithium-ion batteries. Even if we had enough raw material and could make them affordable, and built a grid to sustain that, EV tech significantly increases vehicle weight. Roads and bridges suffer while no fuel taxes are raised to upgrade or repair them. Brakes and tires literally emit dangerous particulates as they degrade faster. Lithium-ion is less efficient in colder temps (and may not even function), vehicle damage is more costly to repair, if it can be repaired, and power packs never last as long as expected, creating toxic waste upon disposal.
They can also catch fire, putting lives and property at risk while emitting massive amounts of heavy metal fumes and polluting the local air and water. Since there is no way to extinguish them at the source, containment is currently the only viable response.
If you park one where it can be flooded, the pack may ignite or explode when exposed to water.
The only thing environmentally friendly about them is the rhetoric, which costs more per unit of whatever you buy, for all the downsides mentioned, plus a few more. But if you promise people someone else’s money, they’ll toe your line, and many have.
In August 2024, New Hampshire’s Congressional Delegation celebrated screwing future taxpayers out of another 31 million plus interest for EV school buses in the Granite State. There are no stories about actual purchases, but a list of schools that got grants is available here.
They won’t be buying them from Lion Electric. “The company has filed for bankruptcy, eliminating most of its staff. The school district has now decided to remove the buses from its property.“
Assuming the funds have not been clawed back, perhaps the districts could repurpose them, given the long list of negatives, including fire. For example, they could hire someone to teach kids to read or do math instead of asking them how they feel about it, or if that makes them some other sex. Adding, subtracting – language skills instead of language arts.
Not holding my breath.
