St. Albert's seven electric buses aren't lasting as long as the city initially thought they would.
With initial life spans thought to be 18 years, premature battery degradation and a host of fleet-wide mechanical issues has lead the city to reduce the expected life span of the buses to 12 years, city spokesperson Pamela Osborne said.
In 2017 St. Albert became the first municipality in all of Canada to incorporate long-range electric buses into its transit fleet with three buses hitting the streets that spring, while another four electric buses joined the fleet in 2018. St. Albert received $2.1 million in provincial and federal funding to help purchase the buses.
Being the first municipality to partially electrify its transit fleet earned the city a Transportation Innovation award from the provincial government in 2018; as well as an Emerald Award in 2020, a prestigious environmental accomplishment award.
St. Albert procured their buses from BYD Ltd., a Chinese manufacturer of electric buses, bikes, cars, forklifts, and more. BYD did not respond to the Gazette's request for comment.
The issues
Osborne said three of the seven buses needed complete battery replacements within the first five years, and in one case a battery started malfunctioning after just two years.
“The battery replacements on our three BYD buses each took 80 days to accomplish and were out of service for the duration of the replacement,” Osborne said, adding that the city has also experienced issues with the BYD-made bus chargers as well, noting that the chargers started failing after less than two years of use.
“All seven BYD buses have received full propulsion component changes — including the drive motors, reduction gearboxes and hubs," as well, Osborne explained.
“We have also had a fleet-wide replacement of compressors and high voltage junction boxes, as well as numerous power inverters, modules, coolers and oil pumps.”
While BYD's buses did come with a 12-year warranty for the batteries, Osborne said the city has had to cover the expenses for mechanical failures. Osborne did not provide an estimate for how much the city has had to spend on repairs over the past seven years but said all expenses were covered under the city's annual budgets.
“The electric buses are seven years old and in travelling 2,200 kilometres per month (as compared to a diesel bus at 4,250 kilometres per month), we have found that the electric buses fail or breakdown slightly less often than the diesel buses, but when they fail or breakdown they are out of service longer than diesel buses,” she said.
In 2017 the city estimated that the electric fleet would be able to drive about 233 kilometres a day in the summer months, but Osborne said the electric busses only average about 110 kilometres a day in the winter months, whereas a regular diesel bus can travel 420 kilometres a day.
An area of success for the electric fleet, Osborne said, is that the buses continue to produce 51 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions than the city's diesel fleet, with further emission reduction also taking place thanks to the 712 solar panels on the roof of St. Albert Transit's main garage in Campbell Park. Currently, two of the city's electric buses get charged through the energy from the solar panels, Osborne said.
With the fleet's lifecycle now being reduced to 12 years, the city is estimating that the buses will need to be replaced in 2029 and 2030.
City administration's plan, Osborne said, is to replace the buses with new electric buses when the time comes, with current estimates being $1.3 million per bus, “or alternate fueled buses.”
The risk of being first
“It's disappointing that [the buses] didn't live up to the hype,” said Coun. Wes Brodhead, who worked for the Edmonton Transit Service for more than 30 years before entering municipal politics.
“You never want to be surprised by these sorts of things, but you're introducing new technology and often there's teething problems,” he said. “It's the same thing with early addition battery cars — they are not all what they were touted to be but they're getting better all the time — and I suspect that will be the same with electric buses.”
“I'd love to see an electric fleet, and it will happen sooner or later, it'll take time and there'll be hiccups and this sort of thing will come about but we'll have to persevere, and I'm hopeful that in my lifetime I see a full electric or zero-emission bus fleet in Alberta.”
Coun. Mike Killick also said he was disappointed with how the buses have performed over the past seven years, but pointed out that St. Albert's experience hasn't been nearly as bad as Edmonton's.
In the summer of 2020 the City of Edmonton rolled out 60 electric buses manufactured by the United States-based company Proterra, but, as the CBC reported in November, after just three years 44 of the 60 buses “aren't fit to be on the roads.”
Edmonton's situation has been made more complicated by the fact that Proterra filed for bankruptcy protection this past summer, with Edmonton claiming $8 million in deferred revenue as a result of Proterra's buses failing to meet contract-determined expectations and undelivered parts.
“It's a tough position for St. Albert, but certainly not as bad as the Edmonton situation,” Killick said. “It just shows that with new technology, we have to be very, not skeptical, but very cautious.”
As such, Killick said he would be very cautious about St. Albert potentially adopting hydrogen-fueled buses like those recently piloted by Strathcona County and Edmonton.
“I would be cautious about spending St. Albert taxpayer dollars on another new technology like hydrogen... so that we don't get into the same situation we are with electric,” he said.
“We've kind of learned that lesson with our electric buses that early models don't tend to perform as originally promised.”
Coun. Sheena Hughes says she's concerned what the city's financial impact will be now that the buses will need to be replaced six years sooner than thought.
“It is definitely going to put future councils into a bind when they have to replace something before the lifecycle is predicting it to be replaced,” she said, adding that there's no guarantee St. Albert will receive further government grant funding to help purchase replacement buses.
“I'm hoping this will be a learning lesson that we don't just immediately jump on new technology but rather let itself iron the kinks out and see if it's still a sustainable technology long term,” she said.“ Each [diesel] bus typically gets a million kilometres on it, so you need something that's durable.”
“Just because it looks good out of the gate doesn't mean it's going to make it to the final lap.”
