Still unsafe to drive: Winthrop officials to meet with federal government on flawed electric school buses (2024)

WINTHROP — Department heads in the Winthrop Public Schools will meet this week with federal education officials to figure out how to move forward with the district’s four grant-funded electric school buses, which failed inspections again this week and were deemed unfit to drive.

The four electric buses supplied by Québec-based Lion Electric Co. came riddled with problems, first reported in December. Transportation Director Josh Wheeler has said his last straw came in February, when mechanical problems forced him to drive into a snowbank to stop one of the buses.

The buses were returned to the company shortly after that incident, and Wheeler later received word they were fixed. But when they were returned to Winthrop last week, the Maine State Police’s inspection unit found problemswith the emergency exits and the heating system that rendered the buses unfit to drive.

Wheeler and Winthrop Public Schools Superintendent Jim Hodgkin will meet with officials in charge of the federal Clean School Bus Program, which awarded the grant to acquire the buses, along with a representative from the Department of Education, to figure out how to move forward.

“I think it’s frustrating. They were gone for three months and gone through with a fine-tooth comb and failed,” Hodgkin told the Kennebec Journal. “(Lion Electric Co.) has been very responsive. When they heard the buses failed – they have a limited amount of technicians, but are going to send one this week or next to go through with (Wheeler) and state police on what happened.”

Wheeler updated the Winthrop School Board at Wednesday’s meeting. He noted that the two inspectors from the Maine State Police, which routinely inspects school buses, were new to the situation and had not performed the previous two inspections.

The inspectors found all four buses – all 2023 models with mileage ranging from 532 to 29,053 – had problems with emergency doors either not latching or being difficult to open. The diesel heater in two buses did not work; the seat belt cutter was missing from one bus; and in one bus, the motor simply did not start. Additionally, two could not be plugged into charging stations.

Patrick Gervais, Lion Electric’s vice president of trucks and public affairs, said in a statement to the Kennebec Journal that some damage occurred to the electric buses in the flat-bed transportation of the vehicles, but the company plans to take the necessary steps to inspect and fix them.

“During transportation, some damages occurred, but nothing that affected any critical systems,” Gervais said. “Some minor items had to be addressed by our service teams, which is not unusual when heavy-duty vehicles are shipped on a flatbed. All flagged items have been addressed, other than damage to a heating system on one vehicle that occurred in transportation, which will be addressed shortly.”

Winthrop Public Schools did not pay for the four electric school buses, but was selected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to take part inthe Clean School Bus Program. For every electric school bus the district received for free, it traded in a diesel bus.

School Board Chair Alicia Lawson asked at Wednesday’s meeting if other schools are having the same issues as Winthrop. Wheeler said the Yarmouth School Department is still having problems with its two electric buses, which had leaky windshields when they were first delivered.

Wheeler also mentioned reading articles regarding financial struggles facing Lion Electric, including laying off 100 workers amid a $100 million loss, as reported in the Financial Post.

Yarmouth Director of Transportation Chris Storer said the school department used the electric school buses for only a week last year and three weeks this year before they were sent back to the company for repairs. Yarmouth’s two 2023 models have fewer than 3,000 miles; diesel buses are driven about 10,000 miles transporting students in an average school year.

“We have had heater failures, blown compressors, critical battery failure, degraded power levels,” Storer said. “The most recent is overheating that causes the buses to lose power.”

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