Back to Gas: School Districts Revert to Diesel Because Biden’s Electric Buses Can’t Be Repairedhttps://freebeacon.com/energy/back-to-gas-school-districts-revert-to-diesel-because-bidens-electric-buses-cant-be-repaired/The Biden administration awarded Canadian electric bus maker Lion Electric $159 million to manufacture 435 school buses between 2022 and 2024, making it the third-largest recipient of such funding. The company has since fallen into bankruptcy, failed to deliver hundreds of the buses it promised, and warned school districts that its dire financial straits prevent it from servicing those in circulation.
As a result, many of those districts are turning back to diesel.
The Washington Free Beacon reported earlier this year that Lion, then nearing bankruptcy, had yet to deliver $95 million worth of the electric buses it pledged to produce as part of the Biden administration's $5 billion Clean School Bus program. Since then, Lion was sold for just $6 million during bankruptcy proceedings after being valued at $4.7 billion as recently as June 2021. The company also permanently shuttered multiple manufacturing plants, fired the majority of its employees, and told consumers that it could no longer honor warranties and purchase orders in the United States.
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Several school districts across the country have completely removed their Lion buses from service over mechanical and safety concerns. A superintendent for a Midwest school district told industry publication Clean Trucking the district's buses could not heat up in cold weather, lost steering and braking ability at times, had defective frames, and regularly displayed error messages that forced drivers to reset the vehicles.
"The buses do not run for more than a month before needing more repairs," Coleen Souza, assistant to the superintendent of Winthrop Public Schools in Maine, told Clean Trucking.
What is out there is largely unrepairable, and a few schools have had buses burn to the ground (no casualties, apparently). The things probably had little testing for durability, safety, or repairability, and the company was probably not vetted for its manufacturing capability or financial soundness (you know, all the basics you'd want from a new school bus manufacturer). But the enviros in the LIEden MalAdministration thought the way they have for 5 or 6 decades, "If we throw money at it, it will work." Or, given LIEden family ethics, maybe some family member or friend found a way to get $$$$ laundered through a predictable failure company into their bank accounts. Or both, of course.
