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Why the big fuss? Fires happen occasionally. Is there something about the fire that was avoidable? There are really no details given - a real non-story.

Perhaps this part of a PR campaign to signal how government takes this sort of thing very seriously?



They've withdrawn the electric buses on one specific route, which a later paragraph suggests is a specific type, while figuring out if there's a specific issue. It's posted in a regional sub-section for London rather than in their national news. That doesn't sound like a big fuss to me.


Your second point is probably the correct point, but hopefully we find out more with time.

Battery fires are actually very hard to tackle so my guess is that these busses were built to avoid catching on fire as much as possible so when one does happen, they need to investigate to make sure there isn't a major design flaw.


This article is in the BBC's local news section for London. It's a run-of-the-mill public transport local news story. It's not national news. Why it has been posted here, I don't know.


I posted this and can answer your question.

I don't live in UK, and don't generally read the local news section of BBC, so this was displayed on the side when I was reading a story about the volcanic activity in Iceland.

I clicked on the story, because it was about electric busses, a subject I'm interested in, since we don't have any where I live.

After clicking on the story, I was a bit disappointed with the lack of detail.

I decided to post here, because I figured if it got any traction, someone on here would post a bit more detail.

The top comment on here currently is exactly what I was hoping to see, and I'm glad I posted the story.


It seems to be part of the current "culture war" in Britain — at least judging by the promoted Facebook posts I see.

Over half of London's buses are electric (11%) or hybrid (44%) so it's not surprising that fires are now affecting these.


Promoted FB posts are a very bad measure of what is happening. They are designed to provoke people and get reactions - it is all about engagement.

I do not know what the motive is (some way of making money no doubt) but it is clear to me that these are mostly just trying to get comments and reactions.

I strongly suspect a lot of what I see on FB is not even human written - lots of jokes that do not quite make sense, minor variations on things I have seen before that also do not quire make sense.


There's also reporting like "Officials today launched an investigation after one of Sadiq Khan's electric buses exploded during today's rush hour". [1]

"A huge blast ripped off the back of an Optare Metrodecker 1050 bus"... yet the picture shows the back of the bus is intact. [2]

Daily Mail nonsense like this was enough to influence the Uxbridge byelection (over LTNs), but I'll admit I'm too far away from Britain to know the situation.

[1] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12950765/London-ele...

[2] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12955781/Wimbledon-...


It seems like a _bit_ of a non-story, absent any other info; bus fires are more common than you might think.




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