HEY TREE-HUGGERS: Before You Get TOO Excited About Your Shiny New Electric Busses… Read THIS

Opinions changed pretty quickly on that ‘bipartisan infrastructure plan’ didn’t they?

One day, Pelosi refused to let it even go to the vote, and dared Manchin to endure the wrath of activists. Then, when he didn’t blink, Pelosi squeaked it through, with the dubious help of some Republicans, and suddenly Democrats are taking a victory lap.

Naturally, it’s chock full of all sorts of things that are exactly the sort of issues near and dear to the hearts of the Democrats — like transit, and their Green New Deal.

One line item actually combines the two… as was quite enthusiastically described in this passage written by a contributor to the Hill.

Last Thursday, the Biden administration announced its support for a bipartisan infrastructure deal totaling $1.2 trillion. The framework for the deal includes $7.5 billion to help replace thousands of diesel-powered school and transit buses with electric models. This is an important step in supporting school bus electrification, but it falls far short of what’s needed to protect students and the environment.

Electric school buses are a worthy investment. There are roughly 480,000 school buses being used for school transportation in the United States — more than twice the size of all other modes of mass transit combined. These buses travel a total of nearly 3.5 billion miles each year, and nearly 95 percent of them run on diesel fuel. As a result, replacing more of these buses with electric models can substantially reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, nearly one-third of which come from transportation. Even though electric buses have no tailpipe emissions, there are still associated GHG emissions due to generating electricity using fossil fuels, but the electric grid will almost certainly become cleaner over time. —TheHill

Leaving aside the super-fan tone of that description, it gives readers a sense of scale in what this bus purchase would look like, and why they care so much about it.

But there’s a catch. One that should be of special interest to the safety-obsessed left.

A large fire has ripped through a bus depot on Thursday night in the southwestern German city of Stuttgart, destroying up to 20 buses.

According to local newspaper the Stuttgarter Zeitung, citing the police and fire department’s initial assessment, only two people have been treated for smoke inhalation. —DW

That fire was just a little more than a month ago. Here’s what it looked like.

BREAKING: Massive fire and explosions at a bus depot in Stuttgart. pic.twitter.com/dckFOUjvkO

— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) September 30, 2021

The likely cause of the fire has been identified.

The major fire in a Stuttgart bus depot at the end of September could have been triggered by a charging electric bus. The Baden-Württemberg State Criminal Police Office (LKA) determined this on the basis of the fire alarm system and the associated temperature sensors. The investigators are currently assuming a technical defect, the LKA announced. Appraisers should investigate the burned-out bus further, the investigation is ongoing. — MRT

This is but one of multiple instances of electric vehicles creating fire hazards.

It’s happened with enough regularity that German cities have begun abandoning the electric transit option altogether.

German media, for example here, report that currently electric buses are being withdrawn from service in cities because they pose a fire hazard. Earlier in June of this year in Hanover, Germany, a major fire destroyed nine buses belonging to the Üstra transport company and so the company took the remaining buses out of service until the exact cause is determined.

…The Stuttgart transport authority also took buses out of service after an electric bus fire destroyed 25 vehicles. The MK also reports that the city of Regensburg also removed the same kind of electric bus from service for fear of fire.

According to the MK, the problem is the extremes heat generated by the vehicle’s batteries, which can reach temperatures of 1000°C due to “thermal runaway”.

15-meter safe parking distance

“In the process, the lithium-ion batteries release energy in an uncontrolled manner,” reports the MK. “For the same reason, electric cars also repeatedly catch fire. The first e-cars are now only allowed to park at a distance of 15 meters because of the risk of fire.” –WUWT

Don’t you think that we should settle questions like these ones BEFORE sinking a few billion dollars into technology that other cities are already moving AWAY from?

Then again, if leftists had any track record of learning the important lessons of past failures, they would long since have entirely abandoned their ideology.

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