Canada’s capital, Ottawa, plans to roll out 450 battery-powered buses over 5 years. It will cost $986 million to buy these new 40-foot buses, charging equipment, electrical upgrades at the St. Laurent garage, and a backup generator powered by natural gas.
A pilot project with 4 electric buses will be coming this fall, yet despite such plans, they haven’t started any test runs yet.
It is unknown how electric buses will hold up in Ottawa’s winter. Battery manufacturers have told us that cold temperatures impact performance, and we have already seen electric buses breaking down in other countries such as Germany in cold weather, even at just -10 degrees Celsius, and Ottawa gets a lot colder than that!
Furthermore, it’s hard to estimate what the cost will be to power the buses. The staff report to the transit commission points out that electricity prices could increase and diesel prices could drop, impacting the city’s ability to pay back the loan taken in establishing the buses.
This planned transition to electric buses will have a huge impact on Ottawa’s transportation system, jeopardizing reliability and sapping tax-payer dollars into a supposedly “green energy” scheme that will strand commuters in our coldest weather. And, as I explained in a previous Climate Change Minute on this topic, it will cause serious environmental damage when the batteries are manufactured.
To learn more about this and other topics in climate change, please visit icsc-canada.com
