![]() In a March 2021 email, SEPTA General Manager Leslie Richards said she planned to tell Federal Transit Administration officials, who helped underwrite the initial purchase of Proterra buses with a $2.6 million federal grant, that she had doubts about “the future of electric vehicle procurement.” They also show that damage to the buses was discovered even earlier than the agency previously acknowledged - before the buses even began regular service. But internal communications, obtained by WHYY’s PlanPhilly through a right-to-know request, reveal the incident shook SEPTA’s top executives and triggered a serious reevaluation of its plans to convert more of its fleet to electric power. WHYY thanks our sponsors - become a WHYY sponsorĮxternally, SEPTA has said little about the failed battery bus program or its progress in restoring the buses to service, insisting that it is working on a “resolution” with the bus manufacturer. The diesel and hybrid buses that SEPTA planned to replace with the all-electric fleet remain in service, with no timeline for the e-buses to return. Most are now gathering dust in a South Philly bus depot, riven by cracked chassis and other defects. It’s been nearly a year and a half since a passenger set foot inside one of SEPTA’s Proterra buses, which cost nearly a million dollars apiece when they rolled out in 2019. ![]() The PR stunt was meant to herald the transit agency’s intent to purchase 25 all-electric Proterra Catalyst buses, which, at that time, would have given SEPTA the largest fleet of its kind in the United States.Ī bright green vehicle wrap proclaimed SEPTA had “plugged into an emissions free future.” A new lobby exhibit inside SEPTA headquarters showcased a decades-long “evolution” of its 1,500-vehicle-strong bus fleet - the vehicles from Proterra, the nation’s largest electric bus maker, were presented as the next step in that evolution.īut, today, what was meant to be the future of SEPTA’s fleet is closer to extinction than evolution. ![]() At the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, executives from SEPTA gave free rides on gleaming new battery-powered buses. ![]()
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