Electric buses make it to Twitter
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Everyone see the electric bus fire in Conn.? The state pulled the whole fleet.
Bus fires are not limited to electric ones - while in Rome in 2018 there was a bus fire nearly every other day in May that year, lol.
Rare is an understatement and I’m sure they pulled the entire fleet for political purposes and used the incident as an excuse, which is normal political insanity.
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does the “Powered by Duke Energy” mean Duke is providing the charging free or free green advertising for Duke?
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I’m pretty sure Duke donated and installed the charging stations free of charge. There might be more within their agreement but I’m not sure
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It’s highly unlikely the state of Connecticut pulled all their electric buses for political purposes.
The bus was parked and out of commission for days when it caught fire, and was specifically ignited by the lithium-ion battery. I’ve never heard of a gas powered vehicle spontaneously combusting while parked in someone’s driveway. It’s a smart liability move, especially considering they cannot extinguish the fire with water.
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Agreed. State officials had, just the day before, celebrated their green transportation initiative, so the timing was bad.
I’ve never heard of a gas/diesel bus bursting into flames in the parking lot, but it was both funny and scary how they were bursting into flames on the streets of Rome, with people on them! No one was every hurt, but it became emblematic of how dysfunction the city of Rome’s government was/is.
Yup, those Mercedes Citaro’s were known for that, but it wasn’t due to the gas or diesel components.
It was… “old and poorly insulated wires led to a current running on the wrong path, which could have caused a spark and led to a fire within the bus’s electrical system”
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Ah. That good ole German engineering.
This article must be making the rounds today because a friend of mine just sent me this and said “Uh oh, didn’t Raleigh just get a bunch of these?”
So I came here to see if this was the same model or technology that we were using, and if so, what does that mean for us?
PS. My daughter and I usually do a bus trip down to Moore Square and eat breakfast at Big Ed’s. Wanted to do it on the electric bus, but maybe I’ll hold off for a minute lol.
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No, Raleigh’s electric buses are Proterras, not New Flyers.
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It does seem that the electric buses only catch fire when the are parked - so riding them should be ok, lol.
Just don’t fall asleep on one and end up in the lot!!! 
@Anti-carAction - New Flyer had a big plant here in my current home county. I am not sure they do the electric buses here, I think they do. I know they do make a ton of school buses here.
I don’t think any agencies in the triangle run New Flyers actually, it’s all Gillig and Proterra here
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Wolfline is all New Flyer. Next closest agency with New Flyers would be the PART’s route that reaches Chapel Hill.
As it is, the use of articulated buses for BRT which GoRaleigh/GoTriangle wants operating on those lines more or less backs them into New Flyer as they’re the only ones doing a CNG artic and the other option for an electric artic, BYD, has been problematic. At least with diesel/hybrid Novabus is an option and I’m sure that if they could cajole Duke to lend one of theirs for a demo they’d probably work with them.
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I feel like the main issue with these buses is that they have to be maintained differently from “normal buses” and the municipalities with these incidents probably weren’t maintaining them well.
This was probably a short in the high voltage pack, it’s not something a municipality would service themselves.
transit needs to be sexy, always to get ridership this is sexy. For TOD sexy BRT cars sexy, stations, whoever said on this form that it’s not supposed to be sexy obviously doesn’t know about people’s perception. People wanna be attracted t riding this, the bus is a start I like it.
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Honestly there’s something to that, in the sense that it can’t just feel like “the bus.”
Curitiba, Brazil is the pioneer and gold standard in effective BRT, and the key was to make it feel as close to a nice modern subway experience as possible. Those “tube stations” feel cool, modern, and safe.
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Armchair philosophizing…the whole bus / BRT conundrum stems from the fact that most folks like to drive the car not be the passenger if they have to be in the car…?
Maybe it’s a control thing that the bus gets snared in.
Funny how the train / plane experience doesn’t seem to struggle with that as much for the everyday Joe.
Could it be the **Lugzxury mindset of transport that elevate trains / planes and therefore, light rail since it’s typically present in the wealthiest / best places to live markets?