START Bus, Proterra Unveil First Electric Buses
Using a lease to bring down costs is like using gasoline to douse a fire. I have come to distrust those tricks. But the real problem is not even procurement cost – it’s that those buses are bought to serve a certain route for most of their life. In the case of a battery vehicle, you tailor-make the battery to be able to cover that route. This means that there is very little tolerance for battery mishaps. And if the battery just loses 20% of its capacity, it needs a new one swapped in. Factor this cost in.
