Dems' Electric Bus Dreams Go Up in Flames, Entire Fleet Taken Off Road Amid Massive Failure
An entire fleet of electric buses in Connecticut is being pulled off the road.
Various Democratic lawmakers in the state had promoted the fleet as a step forward in green energy.
However, on Saturday, those green energy plans went up in flames, literally.
An entire fleet of Democrat-approved electric buses has been pulled from service.
Why? Well, turns out lithium batteries aren’t always the safest. pic.twitter.com/6qVuMZRSJ0
— Michael Austin (@mikeswriting) July 27, 2022
After the lithium battery of one CT transit bus caught fire, destroying the entire vehicle, the rest of the fleet was pulled from service as a precaution according to CT Insider. The bus had no occupants at the time of the incident.
“Lithium-ion battery fires are difficult to extinguish due to the thermal chemical process that produces great heat and continually reignites,” Hamden fire officials said.
For safety, the entire fleet has been pulled.
Now, in its stead, diesel-powered buses are rolling through Connecticut once again.
“The importance of rider safety is demonstrated by taking these buses out of service and ensuring a thorough investigation is completed prior to any redeployment of the fleet,” CT transit spokesperson Josh Rickman said.
“We have deployed diesel buses to make sure people get to where they need to be.”
In a hilariously ironic twist, only one day prior to the Saturday fire, state officials gathered together in New Haven, Connecticut, to “boost the success of the Clean Air Act that would restrict diesel vehicles and increase electric cars in the state.”
“There are approximately 800 buses that we are responsible for at the DOT that are being replaced with no-emissions electric models. They’re quieter, they emit no emissions and they last longer,” state DOT Commissioner Joe Giulietti said at the event.
Despite Saturday’s setback, Democrats in the state are still set to transition public vehicles away from diesel.
“In addition to the electric state-run buses, public school buses will also shift to electric models, according to the governor’s statement,” CT Insider reported. “The Clean Air Act will also prohibit the procurement of diesel-powered buses after 2023.”
Time after time, green energy production and electric-powered vehicles have failed to stack up to their fossil fuel counterparts.
Nevertheless, Democrats at every level are pushing to make such energies the new standard.
Even at the cost of Americans’ living standards, finances and personal safety.
UPDATE, July 29, 2022: Online insurance broker AutoInsuranceEZ.com researched auto fires by type of car using data from the National Transportation Safety Board, Bureau of Transportation Statistics and Recalls.gov and concluded “that despite the focus on EV fires in the news, they are not inherently more dangerous than gas or hybrid vehicles, although electric fires tend to be more difficult than gas fires to extinguish.”
Perhaps more importantly, the independent, nonprofit Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and Highway Loss Data Institute in a study of “electric and conventional versions of nine models from 2011 to 2019” concluded that electric vehicles may be considered significantly safer than similar conventional models because “rates of injury claims related to the drivers and passengers of electric vehicles were more than 40 percent lower than for identical conventional models over 2011-19. This result is similar to an earlier HLDI study of hybrid vehicles, and one likely explanation is that the large batteries used in both types of vehicles make them substantially heavier than their conventional counterparts. Occupants of heavier vehicles are exposed to lower forces in multivehicle crashes.”
The Western Journal is adding this information to this story as important context regarding the safety of electric vehicles in general.
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