LTD invested $30 million in electric buses 6 years ago. They’re being phased out.

In 2019, Lane Transit District signed a contract to buy 30 electric buses from New Flyer of America, a Winnipeg, Manitoba-based company. Six years later, amid myriad operational problems, the agency is going back to diesel buses. Less than half of the original electric fleet will remain. 

The price tag for 30 buses — a quarter of the LTD’s fleet — was $30 million, 80% of which was paid for by a grant from the Federal Transit Administration. The other 20%, about $6 million, came from LTD’s general fund.

As they were being rolled out, LTD leaders said the benefits from the electric buses would be “extensive.” With zero tailpipe emissions, the buses appeared to be a big step toward the agency’s goal of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions within 15 years. 

In 2019, the first 11 buses arrived. The fleet was riddled with problems from the get-go. 

The issues stemmed from the fleet’s batteries. New Flyer battery cells would frequently fail, and either severely degrade the overall range and performance of a bus, or shut it down entirely.

Across the country, other transit agencies lost multiple buses due to fires in the battery compartments. No such fires were ever reported in LTD buses.

No quick fixes

At LTD, repair teams said diagnosing and fixing the buses’ many issues was tedious, and finding qualified battery technicians was difficult.

For problems that couldn’t be resolved in-house, technicians had to use a data logger and operate each bus for two to four hours before sending the data logs to New Flyer. On occasion New Flyer engineers required multiple days to analyze the logs. Sometimes the initial data wouldn’t be expansive enough for analysis, and LTD would have to start the process over again.

Nevertheless, two years later, the next 19 buses arrived.

LTD’s chief operations officer Mike Hursh, who was not with the agency when it agreed to purchase the 30 buses, said that LTD likely continued purchasing buses due to misleading marketing by the company — and to follow the lead of other transit districts nationwide. 

“The battery electric industry in particular really did an excellent job in marketing to policymakers, and they were blatantly dishonest about the range,” Hursh said during a public meeting in March at which the electric buses were discussed.

As soon as large fleets were delivered “the truth came out,” Hursh said. “I just came from an agency that was the leader in zero emission, we’re all looking for ways to back off because of the cost and the reliability.”

Josh Skov, a former LTD board member who served until 2021, initially raised concerns to LTD leadership about signing a hefty contract with a company that had only just begun its foray into electric buses. But he said his concerns were dismissed.​

“I tried to look up how many electric buses (New Flyer) had produced at that point, and it was a really small number,” Skov said. “We were talking about dozens or scores for New Flyer. They were really beginning.”

New Flyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Lookout Eugene-Springfield.

While repair time for the second group of buses improved, the battery repair time still averaged about two weeks. At any given time, half of the electric bus fleet was down for maintenance.

As of Nov. 17, only six of the 30 buses were available for riders.

At the March meeting, Hursh described a long list of operational failures in the electric buses, which included short-circuiting batteries and mileage that would range widely based on the weather, making transit planning difficult.

“Imagine your family vacation. One day you fuel your car. You can go 200 miles on a normal day,” Hursh said. “The next day, a cold or hot day, you can only go 80 or 90 miles with that same amount of fuel in your tank. That is incredibly difficult to schedule reliable public transit with those challenges.”

LTD is not alone in experiencing problems with New Flyer’s buses. Agencies in New Jersey and New York also reported problems. On Sept. 20, New Flyer issued a recall announcement, which applied to 19 of LTD’s electric buses. The company advised limiting the battery charge to less than 75% due to risk of fire.

Where it stands

In a Nov. 12 public meeting, LTD’s CEO Jameson T. Auten said that given all the setbacks, the agency now plans to cut its electric bus fleet and invest in diesel buses instead.

“The number one indicator for us in meeting climate goals is to increase ridership … regardless of whether it’s an electric bus or diesel bus,” Auten said. 

Moving forward, the agency has decided to invest in R99 diesel buses that use 99% renewable diesel. Renewable diesel is a fuel derived from plant or animal sources rather than fossil fuels and has lower tailpipe emissions than traditional fossil fuels.

Only 11 electric buses will remain in LTD’s fleet. The other 19 could be shipped to Los Angeles in time for the 2028 Summer Olympics.

Under the original contract for the federal grant, LTD was required to use each of the buses for 500,000 miles or pay back a portion of the grant. If the Federal Transit Administration agrees, Los Angeles would take responsibility for the grant.

“Hindsight is always 20-20. We are proud of our commitment to innovation and sustainability. Several years in with these buses, we know more,” Auten said. “The propulsion system is not the innovation. The innovation is creating a system that gets more people on our buses, that’s how we move the needle on sustainability. These are the forward-thinking investments we’re making now.”

Skov, who was once a concerned board member, still hasn’t given up hope for the green technology. 

“It’s worth figuring out how to deploy electric buses,” Skov said. “Maybe that’s not two or three years away, maybe five to 10 years away, but if you look around the world, people are figuring this out. Electric buses are now becoming the norm.”

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the status of a deal to send some of the LTD buses to Los Angeles. That deal has not yet been finalized. Also, a quote that should have been attributed to LTD CEO Jameson T. Auten was mistakenly attributed to a spokesperson.