NYC Turns Back to Gas Buses After Finding Out the Hard Way That the Electric Versions Have Big Problems
Whoops.
New York City is pretty much broke. Mayor Zohran Mamdani may be crowing about the fact that he’s balanced the city’s budget, but that’s mostly because lawmakers in Albany bailed him out. There are also looming tax increases driving people out of the city and gutting future revenue, so that’s an issue.
In short, now isn’t the time that NYC needs to be making a capital outlay on something that should have been predicted long ago. But apparently, a bunch of electric buses that Gotham bought in order to go zero emissions? Yeah, it turns out that, in a development that could have been predicted by anyone who’s followed EV developments, the city’s transit authority is going to have to acquire 650 new buses that run on compressed natural gas because the EV buses won’t work.
From The City Reporter, Sept. 10:
The MTA committed nearly a decade ago to having its entire fleet of close to 6,000 buses be emissions-free by 2040, but officials on Thursday said the transportation authority is instead seeking proposals from manufacturers to produce low-emissions alternatives to diesel.
Advertisement - story continues belowOfficials tied the release of a request for proposals to the “Next Stop: Fast Buses, Better Service” plan unveiled in July by Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, as the head of the MTA has repeatedly acknowledged that electric-bus technology is “still immature.”
“The governor and the mayor have been clear: better bus service can’t wait,” said Janno Lieber, the transportation authority’s chairperson and chief executive. “So, while the electric bus industry continues to mature, MTA is moving forward with CNGs to further improve service for the millions of New Yorkers who ride MTA buses every day.”
The same left-leaning local outlet reported in August that this move was likely in the works, as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s zero emissions bus program — which is costing the city billions of dollars — was “in jeopardy,” according to a statement from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
“The MTA has set an ambitious goal to transform the nation’s largest bus fleet to 100% zero-emission,” DiNapoli said in an Aug. 19 statement. “Unfortunately, this audit identified multiple challenges that have put its 2040 target in jeopardy.”
At the time, MTA CEO Janno Lieber acknowledged that an audit by the comptroller’s office showed the fleet was letting New Yorkers down.
“The electric buses that we have tested so far have not been up to standards. They break down too frequently,” Lieber said at a media briefing, according to The City Reporter.
“We have put the manufacturer on notice and in order for us to continue purchasing electric buses, we need that reliability standard to be met.”
You’re not kidding. For one, the $1.8 million cost of an articulated EV bus — i.e., one that bends in the middle for city driving — costs roughly 60 percent more than the diesel buses in New York’s fleet.
And for the price, the 75 buses that were in the fleet already were underperforming.
“The [battery-electric buses] at five depots were only able to be put into service less than 60% of the time the MTA anticipated,” the audit read.
“We are on track to improve emissions and we are committed to maintaining the rapid progress on that,” Lieber said. “But it does depend on, ultimately, the electric buses or hydrogen — which we’re also testing — panning out.”
The problem is that the MTA’s chief of rolling stock (i.e., buses and trains) acknowledged back in June that this kind of deployment issue on buses is basically “an industrywide problem.” It’s not unique to New York City, it just happens to be the biggest city in the United States and one where the mayor is unusually focused on making bus service available and as cheap as possible, almost to the point of absurdity.
Yes, like any good socialist, Zohran Mamdani wants zero-emission vehicles. However, when you’ve based much of your image on getting the buses running on time and in order, spending absurd amounts of money on articulated EV buses that don’t work as much as they should is a major problem. And when you consider the whole project of replacing the city’s entire bus fleet with EVs is estimated to cost $12 billion and use enough electricity to light 200,000 houses to accomplish, as The City Reporter noted, that becomes a double whammy.
And the city is turning back to compressed natural gas, purchasing the 650 new CNG-powered vehicles to replace 620 CNG-powered vehicles it purchased in 2013.
The City Reporter is describing the move as “part of the MTA’s largest single upgrade to its fleet since 2013.” This is being counted as a win by the people who should have known better in the first place.
“Modern, reliable buses can spend more time on the road and less time in the shop than the old vehicles they will replace, a win for riders who depend on frequent, reliable service to get around,” Democrat New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement, according to The City Reporter.
Anyone with sense could have told them this years ago, but why learn from logic when you can get knocked around by experience?
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