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CapMetro to shelve 46 new electric buses for a year after manufacturer bankruptcy

Overhead aerial view of CapMetro buses, both electric and diesel, neatly parked in rows at the North Ops Center.
Nathan Bernier
/
KUT News
An overhead view of buses parked at CapMetro's North Ops facility on McNeil Drive north of U.S. 183.

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Capital Metro will put 46 brand-new electric buses in storage for at least a year, the latest fallout from an electrification goal the transit agency now admits was overly ambitious. The main problem, CapMetro's leadership says, has been the slow rollout of e-bus chargers at the end of routes to keep vehicles running all day.

Mothballing the battery-powered buses from the now bankrupt supplier Proterra will slow the planned expansion of transit services for thousands of Austin commuters, who are using CapMetro at some of the highest levels since the pandemic. The transit agency averaged nearly 80,000 trips a day in September, the most recent month for which data is available.

As the million-dollar buses gather dust, Phoenix Motor Inc. — the Anaheim, California, company that acquired Proterra's bus business in a bankruptcy auction — is struggling to service warranties and address technical issues that have plagued CapMetro's Proterra buses. CapMetro says that's why it chose Proterra buses to put in storage until the other infrastructure problems are fixed.

Phoenix Motor did not respond to a request seeking comment before this story was published.

A blue Proterra ZX5 bus. The bus is seen driving down the road wrapped in a sign that says, "Battery electric." A city skyline is in the background.
Proterra Transit
Capital Metro will put 46 of Proterra's ZX5 buses in storage for at least a year.

Transit agencies across the country alleged in Proterra's bankruptcy lawsuit that the company's buses fail far more frequently than their diesel counterparts. Broward County, Florida, for example, claimed its first batch of Proterra buses had mechanical failures more than seven times as frequently as diesel buses, on average.

Phoenix Motor, whose stock has plummeted 89% since its 2022 NASDAQ debut, has agreed to pause CapMetro's bus warranties during the storage period, according to Capital Metro operations chief Andy Skabowski.

"We're not going to be burning warranty," he said.

The agency's other e-bus supplier — Winnipeg, Canada-based New Flyer — is now providing Capital Metro additional services and parts. Forty of CapMetro's 58 buses from New Flyer will begin serving passengers, but only for eight hours a day until more chargers are installed at the end of bus routes.

CapMetro says it remains committed to getting all 104 of its battery-electric buses up and running — about a quarter of the fleet — aiming to improve transit with quieter, smoother-riding vehicles while reducing emissions in a city flirting with air pollution levels that could violate new national standards.

"The best thing we can do for the environment is to get riders on to public transit," CapMetro CEO Dottie Watkins said. "The second best thing we can do, after we've gotten everybody on the buses, is to make those buses as clean as possible."

With a quarter of the bus fleet electric, the transit system's adoption rate would exceed European countries like Belgium and Norway, which have far more political and financial support for zero-emissions vehicles.

But the immediate delays mean a pair of planned high-frequency bus lines, part of the agency’s Project Connect vision, will launch next year with slower service and diesel buses instead of the electric vehicles promised under the voter-approved transit expansion.

Both routes will run through areas east of I-35 that currently lack any of CapMetro's higher-frequency Rapid service. The Pleasant Valley line will establish a transit spine from Southeast to Northeast Austin. The Expo Center line will offer a 45-minute ride from far Eastern Travis County into downtown Austin with stops at key destinations including Austin Community College Eastview and Dell Children's Medical Center.

A map showing CapMetro's planned 2025 Rapid routes in Austin. Rapid 837 Expo Center is shown in purple. Rapid 800 Pleasant Valley is shown in blue). Key areas served by the routes include Republic Square, UT-Austin, Mueller, ACC Eastview and Goodnight Ranch. Proposed park and ride locations are shown at Goodnight Ranch and the Expo Center.
Capital Metro
Rapid 837 Expo Center and Rapid 800 Pleasant Valley routes are set to launch next spring, serving a range of popular destinations in areas that don't have high-frequency transit. But buses will initially show up every 20 minutes during peak hours and every 30 minutes on weekends, meaning commuters will have to wait twice as long as originally planned. The promised 10-minute frequency isn't expected until 2026.

The newest setbacks also may raise questions about CapMetro's 2021 decision to split a massive e-bus purchasing contract between two companies. But the agency says the decision to store buses is a strategic move based on circumstances that couldn't have been predicted three years ago.

Capital Metro board members and staff are now publicly acknowledging the complications of relying on two different vendors to provide electric vehicles for the Pleasant Valley and Expo Center lines.

"It would almost be like saying, 'Hey, Austin .. we're building you a new light-rail. We're going to run like three different kinds of trains on that light-rail," board member Eric Stratton said during a meeting of the CapMetro operations committee last week.

"It's reasonable to make that comparison," Skabowski responded. He emphasized the agency wants to move back to a single bus supplier for the new Rapid lines at this point.

"In order for us to successfully run [the Pleasant Valley and Expo lines] on a daily basis and have the buses out there that we need, we have to run over 40 electric buses every day," Skabowski said. "Our goal is to get good at that, concentrate on that, make it so that way there's less moving pieces, one vendor, one bus type, one charger type."

CapMetro’s push to be a national leader in the shift to an all-electric fleet has made it a de facto guinea pig for a fledgling industry still catching up to the reliability of electric cars. The lessons learned may pave the way for other transit agencies, but Austin's bus commuters will bear the cost of delayed service expansions in the meantime.

This story has been updated throughout to clarify that CapMetro says it's shelving the Proterra buses because of a lack of end-of-line chargers. The agency says Proterra buses could run if they had enough chargers. But it's putting the buses into storage because of the problems it has already experienced getting service and parts with Phoenix Motor, the new owner of Proterra.

Nathan Bernier is the transportation reporter at KUT. He covers the big projects that are reshaping how we get around Austin, like the I-35 overhaul, the airport's rapid growth and the multibillion-dollar transit expansion Project Connect. He also focuses on the daily changes that affect how we walk, bike and drive around the city. Got a tip? Email him at nbernier@kut.org. Follow him on X @KUTnathan.
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