Vermont using $12.5M to purchase new e-buses

Letenda

Vermont is the first in the United States to purchase the buses from Letenda.

By Brent Addleman | The Center Square

Vermont has received $12.5 million in taxpayer money to purchase new buses for its public transportation system.

The state’s Agency of Transportation announced it plans to purchase nine electric buses through two grant programs through the Federal Transportation Agency.

“These latest FTA awards reflect Vermont’s dedication to public transit and the electrification of our transit fleet,” Transportation Secretary Joe Flynn said in a release. “We thank the FTA, our public transit providers, and the regional utility companies for taking on these challenges to address our shared goals of decreasing carbon emissions, improving the ridership experience, and reducing our dependence on ever-fluctuating fuel costs.”

In addition to the new buses, according to the release, funding will permit for the construction of a new building, along with facility improvements, to the Marble Valley Transit District.

Of the two grants, $9.2 million, according to the release, is being culled from the transit administration’s Low and No Emissions Bus and Bus Facility grant program. The funding will be used to secure nine new e-buses to the Green Mountain Transit and Marble Valley Regional Transit District territories.

The five medium-sized buses, according to the release, will be purchased from Letenda, a new manufacturer located in Longueuil, Quebec, Canada. Vermont is the first in the United States to purchase the buses from Letenda.

The grant, according to the release, will also cover costs for charging infrastructure, a mobile charging unit, driver and maintenance training, and various facility upgrades.

“We are now applying for and obtaining increased funding for more vehicles than ever as we scale-up these electrification efforts,” Public Transit Manager Ross MacDonald said in a release. “Vermont already has 22 electric buses on the road or in the procurement process, with vehicles deployed throughout the state.”

A second grant, totaling $3.3 million, was secured through the transit administration’s Bus and Bus Facilities competitive grant program. Funding will be utilized for the construction of a new office building for Marble Valley in Rutland.

Among the aspects of the new facility in Marble Valley, according to the release, is upgrading the facility that was first built in the 1970s, and the new building will have improved ADA access and will feature a pole barn that will protect the buses and charging infrastructure from the elements.

Image courtesy of Letenda

9 thoughts on “Vermont using $12.5M to purchase new e-buses

  1. Did ya’ see this news from Calif? Calif is spearheading the coming MANDATORY use of EV’s… & gas is banned? You just can’t make this stuff up :)….Liberalism: on their “Insanity Parade” :

    “California bans gas cars by 2035 – then asks consumers to stop charging electric vehicles in current heat wave”

    • And….’California’s legislature voted overnight to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, the state’s last nuclear power plant, open for another five years beyond its previously scheduled shutdown.’

      There’s nothing like a taste of reality to get one’s attention after all.

  2. I think there should be WARNING Signs all over Burlington VT and in cities that have a lot of EV cars around.
    These things are dangerous and I don’t want to be around them.
    And I bet I’m not the only one.
    You are putting yourself at risk being around these busses than can burst into flames at any second and I think the people have the right to make informed decisions.
    These busses and vehicles should be clearly marked so that people know what they are and where they are so they can act accordingly.
    And I see a lot of lawsuits coming too for Burlington.
    I bet those kids on the busses will have some issues from being exposed to who knows what.
    Who wants to be part of this experiment? is anyone asking you? did you vote to be?

    • Buy foolishly, because it’s ‘free government money’ seems more the case. 9,000,000.00 to purchase 9 busses and the infrastructure to support them hardly seems a smart or thoughtful purchase.
      The cost to operate these ‘green’ busses is huge- the capital cost of 9 million plus operating costs puts the seat/ mile cost in the $20.00 per mile range. The climate evangelicals are truly clueless.

  3. Enviro-Progressive Insanity never ends. Well into TRILLIONS $ has been spent on climate change and CO2…and Biden just signed a bill adding ANOTHER $359,000,000,000 for climate stuff. Just think what that money could do for education, healthcare, infrastructrure, VT ROADS, debt reduction….but NOPE….we spend on climate change? MOTHER NATURE makes changes in climate (always has)…human activity is miniscule. So read this about C02 – and realize the planet will die without it:

    “By mole fraction (i.e., by number of molecules), dry air contains 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and small amounts of other gases.”

    OMG? VT spends $12 million on a handful of electric busses – to lower CO2 from 0.04%? HOW ????… CO2 in the air makes up only 0.04% !!!!! So how much will trillions $$ of dollars spent, wasted and blown… worldwide…lower CO2?

    These people are insane, totally insane.

  4. So, if Vermont can purchase electric buses from Quebec, why can’t it purchase more low cost, green, electricity from Hydro Quebec, at about 1/3rd the cost it pays for solar and wind power?

    Answer: at least in part – because GMP rates are regulated by the PUC, limiting its profit margin to, among other things, a specific percentage of gross revenue. Of course, this means that the more GMP spends on power, the more profit its allowed to make. If GMP cut its expenses, it would have to be satisfied with a commensurate cut in profits.

    And keep in mind that one of the three (yes, only three) Vermont PUC commissioners, Margaret Cheney, is Senate candidate Peter Welch’s wife. It’s kinda’ like the National Institute of Health, where Tony Fauci works. Fauci’s wife, Christine Grady, is the Chief of the Department of Bioethics at the NIH.

    Are TNR readers starting to get an idea of how crony capitalism works?

  5. In NYC they have had over 200 Electric Scooter fires that have resulted in at least 4 deaths, as recently as July an Electric Powered Transit bus in Hamden CT went up in flames sending two transit workers to the hospital. In Paris France where they have quite a number of electric busses 2 went up in smoke last year the entire fleet was grounded. India has had massive problem with electric Li Battery powered vehicles (mostly scooters). So its not just in Vermont.

    These fires take 40 times the amount of water to deal with. Note I say deal with as you can’t extinguish the fire only cool the exposures since the battery in its runaway thermal reaction state provides heat, fuel, and oxygen to the fire. Without some pretty specific training and tools all local fire fighters san do is cool it sometimes for more than 6 hours.

    The way the battery packs in the EVs are setup is they contain hundreds of smaller batteries in a shielded case. If you can safely pierce the case you can flood the unit with as little as 8 gpm, with out piercing the case you are forced to inundate the shielded case with 100’s of GPM for hours. Flooding the pierced case allows the firefighters to stop the extension of the intial cell on fire to every other cell in the case and can cut the time to control to around an hour. A standard fire engine carries around 1500 gallons of water so that is ~15 minutes of water, before you need to refill. Thats the kind of tanker operation you see at a multiple alarm house fire.

    Hopefully they plan to put these busses in communities that have fire departments properly trained on LI Battery fires which produce highly toxic smoke and runoff, and school districts that have properly setup charging stations so a school or depot doesn’t get burned down.

    https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/renewable/battery-fires-continue-to-plague-electric-cars-scooters-and-buses/

    https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-ntsb-probe-connecticut-transit-ev-new-flyer-bus-fire-2022-07-29/

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