Re: Why some P.E.I. bus drivers are getting fed up with their new electric school buses

[Battery Electric Vehicles]

On 02 Aug 2021, Molly Bolt <mollyth...@gmail.com> posted some
news:6d7153af-b4f5-462b...@googlegroups.com:

> You deserve what you pay for. Suckers. Taxpayers should fire the
> people who bought them.

Three years ago, the P.E.I. government rolled out its new electric
school buses with much fanfare.

Now some drivers say the buses are plagued with problems, with 16 to 18
of the vehicles in the shop at a time on occasions, out of a total of
just over 100.

Robert Geiss, president of CUPE Local 1145, which represents school bus
drivers on the Island, says he believes the provincial government rushed
into buying the new buses — and now students and drivers are paying the
price.

He said the biggest problems are with the heating systems, leaving some
buses icy cold and leading to windows fogging and freezing up. There
also issues with air compressors freezing, which can interfere with
braking, Geiss said during an interview with CBC News.

Spare buses are also in short supply, Geiss said, because so many of the
province's electric buses are in the shop.

"The drivers are frustrated with the electric buses. There's about 16
per cent of them in the shop at any given time with issues," said Geiss,
who drives an electric school bus in the Summerside area.

The union says the biggest problem is heating issues, which leave some
buses icy cold and windows fogging and freezing up. (Wayne
Thibodeau/CBC)

"You get a new bus, you just get everything moved onto your new bus,
then it's in the shop. Then you're driving around in an older spare
that's 10 to 12 years old."

He said some buses came in at one point that couldn't be charged. "They
didn't have the software for the chargers; they only had the software
for the rapid chargers and we don't have any rapid chargers."

Working on solutions

About 107 of the province's 360 school buses are now electric.

Dave Gillis, direction of transportation and risk management for the
Public Schools Branch, said officials met earlier this month with Lion
Electric, the makers of the electric school buses. He said he's
optimistic they have a handle on the issues and are working on fixes.

Dave Gillis, direction of transportation and risk management for the
Public Schools Branch, says Lion Electric has a handle on the issues and
is working on fixes. (Brittany Spencer/CBC)

"We're dealing with a brand-new technology here. There's no such thing
as a 10-year-old electric school bus anywhere in the world," Gillis
said.

"We're transitioning our entire fleet to electric here in the next
decade or so. We fully understand and expected that we would have some
growing pains, learning experiences, along the way."

'It wasn't excessively cold'

Twice this month, Gillis said, P.E.I. students had to be sent home on
buses without working heaters because there were no spares available in
their area.

"We took two things into consideration when we made the decision," he
said. "One was the temperature outside; it wasn't excessively cold. And
two was the drive times associated with the two buses in question. In
both of those scenarios, we made the decision that it was not a safety
issue as much as it was a comfort issue."

Officials with Lion Electric, the makers of the electric buses,
acknowledge there are issues with the buses.

But Marie-Ève Labranche, Lion's manager of public and government
relations, said student safety is the company's top priority.

"The most common repair on EV buses is the auxiliary heating system,
which can also be found on internal combustion engines (ICE) buses, but
may require more frequent maintenance due to this being the sole source
of heat on-board," Labranche said in a statement to CBC News.

"Lion is actively working on a solution for better performance and
increased reliability."

The company said one of its six technicians is based on P.E.I. but it
plans to add a second technician to help support the Island's fleet of
electric buses.

Limited range can be a problem

Geiss said range is also an issue. The union president said drivers
can't use the electric buses to take students to sporting events at some
rural schools because they can't go far enough on a single charge.

The manufacturer says its electric school buses have a range of between
150 and 200 kilometres in ideal conditions, but Geiss said he's never
seen any of the buses actually reach that number.

"I ran out of power on the way back from a school trip last year Up
West," he said.

Officials with Lion Electric, the makers of the electric buses,
acknowledge there are issues with the buses. (Wayne Thibodeau/CBC)

"I took a band trip up, and on the way back, I realized I wasn't going
to make it. I radioed the depot and they met me at another driver's home
that had a charger... We just swapped out buses and I continued on with
the diesel bus and left the electric there to charge."

'I'd need 4 electric buses each way'

School branch officials admit range is an issue. For now, they will plan
to use diesel buses for longer trips.

The Public School Branch plans to install Level 3 fast chargers at all
its high schools soon, and intends to roll those chargers out to all
schools "eventually."

In the meantime, Geiss said he fears students will either out on some
extracurricular activities, like end-of-school-year trips, or the
province may end up outsourcing the transportation, which he said would
be unfair to the students and drivers alike.

"They are going to have to start buying either hybrids or some
fossil-fuel buses as support because, as I said, we've got Island-wide
tournaments. If I had to take a team from Westisle down to Souris, I'd
need four electric buses each way to make the trip."

https://news.yahoo.com/why-p-e-bus-drivers-100000578.html