Millions of Dollars Wasted As Brand New Electric School Buses Go Up In Smoke While Charging

The latest battery-only vehicle fire news this week is from Wilbraham, Mass., where four brand new buses operated by the Lower Pioneer Valley Educational Collaborative paid for with multiple taxpayer-funded grants went up in smoke while charging. The buses were so new they had not even carried a single student to class. The fire released harmful pollutants into the air and left behind a scene of carnage that will be difficult and costly to clean up. The loss of the buses caused delays to students in the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional and Ludlow school districts.

Related Story: Boston’s MBTA Replaces Electric Buses With Diesel

Thanks to the skill and training of the Wilbraham Fire Department, the inferno was contained and controlled in approximately three hours. Firefighters worked in extreme cold conditions and were supported by fire teams from multiple surrounding communities. Western Mass News reported that the firefighters were also provided help by a rehab unit from the Massachusetts Department of Fire Services.

Torque News estimates the lost taxpayer revenue at about $1.6 million. We base that on the earlier reports of the two funding sources: one grant from the federal government and the other from the state government. Based on images and video supplied by many news sources, each bus was valued at approximately $375,000 in cost, and $20,000 chargers were also damaged in the fire. Nobody has yet broached the subject of how these buses will be replaced and who will foot the bill for the replacements. 

EV buses have been in the news lately due to the largest EV bus company, Proterra, filing for bankruptcy. According to past news reports, this company supplied buses to many New England towns and school districts, including the district that just suffered the fire. 

Electric school buses are all the rage. As a media member covering electric vehicles, I personally feel that school buses and garbage trucks are the vehicles that make the most sense to electrify. After all, they typically operate in a small local area with a short daily driving radius, they always return to a central hub each evening and can easily be charged overnight. Most older busses operate using the most polluting fuel we still tolerate in America, diesel. Every town should be doing its part to replace the most polluting things in our community, such as the MBTA's diesel-guzzling commuter rail trains and fossil-fueled buses. The Sierra Club agrees with my personal opinion on this. The club said in a story about electric school buses that traditional diesel-powered buses render a “...known contribution to children’s ill-health and environmental pollution.”

The battery-electric vehicle advocacy community frequently points out that battery-powered vehicles are less likely to catch fire than conventionally powered vehicles. However, this does not make it any less tragic when such a huge amount of taxpayer money is converted to air pollution in an EV school bus fire. 

Image Note: Rather than sensationalize this latest EV fire with a photo of the blaze, we have instead used a generic image taken by the author. If you'd like to see the images of the EV bus fire, they are available at this link. 

John Goreham is a credentialed New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on Linkedin and follow his work on his personal X channel or on our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John's by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ Grammarly grammar and punctuation software when proofreading.