> What's sad is that the majority of electric buses being purchased both in America and around the globe aren't manufactured in the US.
Detroit should have gotten started on this, sure. But who in Detroit? There just aren't that many American coach builders left in the transit space. GM's bus division got sold off in the 80s, and eventually got sold to Volvo. Flxible eventually went out of business in the 90s (not helped by safety issues). Mack got out of coach building ages ago (and is owned by Volvo these days). Neoplan just built German designs, and went out of business about ten years ago. NABI just built Ikarus (Hungarian) designs and got bought out and shut down by Volvo. Ford and Kenworth haven't built buses in ages. Crown imported some Ikarus buses, but they went out of business a while ago. Blue Bird doesn't do transit buses to the best of my knowledge. Gillig is still around but has mostly been a bit player in the Bay Area at least.
That said, Reagan's Buy American mandate has ensured the opposite, at least within the public transit sphere. Major components that are not American made need waivers if DOT funds are used.
Trolley coaches (what many may think of when they think of electric buses) are pretty rare in the United States. Out here our trolley coaches are mostly Orion (Canadian, bought by Mercedes-Benz, now defunct) and New Flyer (Canadian). Both assembled their vehicles in the United States. Hell, even our decrepit Skoda buses were assembled in San Francisco.
Battery electric buses are almost unheard of in the United States (unsure if this the chicken or egg part of the problem), and the only ones I've seen in person were in Madrid and those were tiny.
Diesel-electric hybrids are becoming quite a bit more common, and for the diesel part of the hybrid equation you'll generally find American motors (e.g. Cummins, Detroit Diesel).
So, sure, it'd be nice to see American companies leading the way with electric buses (at least domestically). I'd argue there's just not enough critical mass for that to happen. It's the same reason Sukhoi's SSJ hasn't sold well. They have such minimal presence outside of Russia that it's hard to get parts and support for them. Even Mexico's Interjet which has reportedly been quite happy with their SSJs has had to ground them.
Here in Los Angeles, LADOT has a handful of battery electric buses in their fleet, for the short DASH routes near downtown [1]. LADOT is the smaller, municipal counterpart to the county's Metro system. The buses themselves are a bit shorter than an average city bus, though that is typical for DASH. I wouldn't call them tiny.
I guess that because they're so quiet, when the bus makes a turn, a loudspeaker on the front of the bus calls out, "Bus is turning right." Pretty funny to hear the first time.
Well tiny is relative, they were probably 25-30ft long which is fairly standard in the US. Meanwhile San Francisco has 40 ft and 60 ft hybrid and trolley coaches.
Seattle + King County has battery-electric busses now. They had a trial run over the past few years but this year they’re rolling out more BEV busses without the hype vinyl wraps (I.e. they’re permanent): https://www.kiro7.com/news/all-electric-zero-emission-buses-...
Detroit should have gotten started on this, sure. But who in Detroit? There just aren't that many American coach builders left in the transit space. GM's bus division got sold off in the 80s, and eventually got sold to Volvo. Flxible eventually went out of business in the 90s (not helped by safety issues). Mack got out of coach building ages ago (and is owned by Volvo these days). Neoplan just built German designs, and went out of business about ten years ago. NABI just built Ikarus (Hungarian) designs and got bought out and shut down by Volvo. Ford and Kenworth haven't built buses in ages. Crown imported some Ikarus buses, but they went out of business a while ago. Blue Bird doesn't do transit buses to the best of my knowledge. Gillig is still around but has mostly been a bit player in the Bay Area at least.
That said, Reagan's Buy American mandate has ensured the opposite, at least within the public transit sphere. Major components that are not American made need waivers if DOT funds are used.
Trolley coaches (what many may think of when they think of electric buses) are pretty rare in the United States. Out here our trolley coaches are mostly Orion (Canadian, bought by Mercedes-Benz, now defunct) and New Flyer (Canadian). Both assembled their vehicles in the United States. Hell, even our decrepit Skoda buses were assembled in San Francisco.
Battery electric buses are almost unheard of in the United States (unsure if this the chicken or egg part of the problem), and the only ones I've seen in person were in Madrid and those were tiny.
Diesel-electric hybrids are becoming quite a bit more common, and for the diesel part of the hybrid equation you'll generally find American motors (e.g. Cummins, Detroit Diesel).
So, sure, it'd be nice to see American companies leading the way with electric buses (at least domestically). I'd argue there's just not enough critical mass for that to happen. It's the same reason Sukhoi's SSJ hasn't sold well. They have such minimal presence outside of Russia that it's hard to get parts and support for them. Even Mexico's Interjet which has reportedly been quite happy with their SSJs has had to ground them.