Green Bus Fleet Achieves Zero Emissions

Over at Hot Air, Jazz Shaw reports that Philadelphia's fleet of 25 electric buses, purchased in 2016 for $1 million apiece, has finally achieved zero carbon dioxide emissions.

Do note that this report isn't coming from some rainbows-and-unicorns green outlet, whose reporters do not seem to understand that the electricity required for such vehicles has to come from somewhere and, more often than not, that somewhere is a fossil fuel power plant. Or that it takes forever to charge batteries built on today's technology, which isn't improving very rapidly.

What we have here is: someone on the right tacitly admitting that such a bus fleet is emissions-free.

You might ask: What is this? A cover-up? Why aren't they admitting it?

Indeed, in a virtual factory visit in April, none other than President Biden called the manufacturer, Proterra, a "company of the future."

Maybe a better question would be: Why haven't the news media been shouting such news from the rooftops? Why haven't I heard about this at least seventy times since I woke up by now?

Stop teasing us, Gus. How did they do it?

The Free Beacon, as quoted by Shaw, reports in part:

Why do greens invariably take pro terra to mean contra humanitatem? (Image by mliu92, via Wikimedia Commons, license.)

More than two dozen electric Proterra buses first unveiled by the city of Philadelphia in 2016 are already out of operation, according to a WHYY investigation.

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.

The city paid $24 million for the 25 new Proterra buses, subsidized in part by a $2.6 million federal grant. [bold added]

Oh. That's not exactly a trade secret, is it?

Indeed, and speaking of trade, we should look far beyond Shaw's wondering aloud about which of (a) SEPTA, (b) Proterra, or (c) both should be on the hook for the problems with these buses, which would have been obvious from the get-go had any of numerous parties been out to make an honest profit.

Note that SEPTA is a government entity, whose financial mistakes will be papered over by tax increases, borrowing, or grants -- but I repeat myself. Proterra, although a publicly-traded company, is very much a creature of the government and our culture's dominant quasi-religion, environmentalism: Its raison d'etre is to cater to government programs behind the adoption of unreliable green energy sources; it fed on grant money early on; and much or all of its market would be government transit authorities, which are hardly profitable or efficient.

The kinds of questions Shaw asked would have been front-and-center in the minds of a proprietor of a transit company who would go under if he ignored them or were so incompetent as not to think of them. Private enterprise would have saved lots of money here, just to start with, and would have motivated someone to build better buses in the first place -- even battery-powered if truly practical.

So, yes, this whole episode is scandalous, but the real story is this: Even with all this propping-up, battery-powered vehicles have -- once again -- proven to be a failure -- but only insofar as providing transportation is concerned. In terms of reducing emissions, they have been a resounding success.

Remember this the next time someone like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, tout green energy as the future. And ask yourself what they think the purpose of what they are calling energy sources actually is.

-- CAV