The Lie that Electric Vehicles Are More Reliable

A Canadian manufacturer of electric school buses has gone bankrupt, voiding warranties. Lion Electric school bus warranties voided, leaving districts stuck

Lion Electric sold electric school buses. The buses had so many problems that the company declared bankruptcy, and voided all of the warranties outside of Quebec. I'm not sure what percentage of the warranties were voided.

School districts are now stuck with buses that don't run, and not a lot of choices on how to get them running again. Herscher CUSD No. 2, in Herscher, Illinois, has 6 of 25 Lion Electric buses inoperable. That is 24 percent of the electric buses out of service.

Herscher isn’t the only district having problems with Lion buses. “All four Lion buses that we own are currently parked and not being used,” Coleen Souza, interim transportation director of Winthrop Public Schools, told Clean Trucking. “Two of them are in need of repairs which would cost us money which we are not willing to invest in because the buses do not run for more than a month before needing more repairs.”

But how can that be? I was told that electric vehicles were simpler and more reliable than internal combustion engines. And that may be, if you ignore things like battery management, and variable frequency inverters, regenerative breaking systems, and host of other complications. That doesn't even consider the risk of fire.

There is also a district in Maine that is covered. The Superintendent of that district says "the buses almost never worked."

I really like the 1st paragraph of the article linked at the top.

Nobody ever says “this is business” before doing something nice, and the recently reborn Lion Electric company is keeping that streak alive by doing the unthinkable to cut costs: they’re going to void the warranties on hundreds of electric school buses.

The hat tip goes to MGUY Australia and his video Bankrupt school bus manufacturer drops BOMBSHELL on owners. It's an 8 minute video.