WI: La Crosse’s e-buses have sat idle for over a year. Why?

The city of La Crosse has invested $1.25 million in federal grants and $300,000 of its own money into zero-emission public transportation.

But the centerpiece of the project, two $650,000 electric buses, have been out of service since the end of 2024 — and according to city officials, it’s unclear when they might return to service.

In 2018, La Crosse was awarded a $1.25 million grant from the Federal Transportation Authority for the explicit purpose of buying e-buses and charging infrastructure.

The total sticker price was about $1.5 million, which included the $1.2 million buses, two charging stations that cost a combined $136,000 and updates to the electrical grid that added another $139,000. The city paid the $323,000 not covered by the grant.

The city bought the buses from EV manufacturer Proterra, which had a longstanding partnership with the FTA — but less than a year after the buses entered service, the company went bankrupt. City transit officials haven’t been able to get the necessary parts for repairs, and the e-buses have languished out of service since late 2024.

‘Running better than expected’

Lorentz said Proterra’s partnership with the FTA was a big reason they chose the vendor. At the time of purchase, it was an up-and-coming manufacturer with a reasonable track record across the country. When the city bought the e-buses, at least six other American cities used their FTA grants to buy buses from the same company.

The electric buses arrived in La Crosse in 2021 and officially entered service in June 2022. They performed well at first, according to Municipal Transit Utility director Adam Lorentz.

“During the first year the buses were on every route,” Lorentz said. “They were running … better than expected.”

The two e-buses alternated between each bus route, and they had enough battery to go through a full day of driving.

But by 2023, the buses had problems. Their batteries were deteriorating, and their transmission systems needed repairs. What should have been an easy fix became nearly impossible when Proterra filed for bankruptcy the same year. City officials couldn’t even figure out who to contact to purchase replacement parts.

Proterra buses were also encountering problems elsewhere. In 2023, the FTA issued a safety advisory for a certain kind of Proterra bus that had an overheating issue that increased the risk of fire.

By 2024, the bankruptcy finalized, and Proterra was bought by two other companies — Phoenix Motors bought its buses, and the Volvo Group bought its battery business.

The companies that snapped up Proterra are required to provide services and parts to Proterra’s existing customers. But after over a year, that still hasn’t happened.

City transit officials are still struggling to find the parts they need to put the $1.2 million buses back on the road, and have also reported problems finding a mechanic with enough expertise to repair this specific model of e-bus.

The absence of the two vehicles hasn’t caused much harm to city transit — at least, so far.

‘We want those buses’

At peak operation, the city runs 16 buses at once. The agency has 24 buses total, including the sidelined e-buses, which means a fair amount of buffer is built into the system to account for down time and repairs. Because of that, the city’s had zero lapses in service since the e-buses went offline.

To say the e-buses’ absence doesn’t matter “would be a disservice,” Lorentz said. The buffer of spare vehicles is necessary for the system to compensate for the regular maintenance to keep its buses running.

“You’ve got to get oil changing your car; I’ve got to change the oil in the buses,” Lorentz said. Anytime a bus is indefinitely out of commission, “it makes it a tighter window to get things done.”

The more buses are out of service, the harder it is to keep the entire system running.

“Obviously we want those buses,” Lorentz said. “We're not a huge facility.”

Even when they were operational, the city’s electric buses drove significantly fewer miles than their counterparts. In their first year of service, both drove less than any other bus in the fleet, reaching less than 30% of the average.

The most they drove in a given year was 2023, before repairs put them out of service — and even then, they were 53% and 61% of the average.

La Crosse isn’t the only Wisconsin city that’s had difficulties with its electric buses. Madison, which has 62 e-buses that make up a third of its fleet, has at times had widespread service problems, and the manufacturer of Racine’s e-bus fleet has recalled its batteries multiple times.

Still, Madison’s buses were eventually serviced, and Racine got new batteries. With officials unable to determine which party is responsible for selling them the parts they need, the same hasn’t happened in La Crosse.

When the MTU bought these buses in 2018, it wasn’t intended to be the first step in completely transitioning to EVs.

“When we got these electric buses, people thought like it was the first step to replace all our busses with EV buses,” Lorentz said. “That was never the intent.”

Instead, the city wanted an energy-diverse fleet pulling from different kinds of low-emissions technologies. The last nine buses the city has purchased have either been hybrid or clean diesel, a highly-refined diesel fuel with lower emissions.

With the e-buses shuttered indefinitely after only a few years in service, it’s unclear where the city will go from here.

The updates to the electric grid have already happened, and the charging infrastructure is still functional, albeit unused. The city could further replace or expand its EV fleet, purchasing new vehicles from a more established vendor, or see if it can get the necessary parts from Phoenix or Volvo.

Lorentz declined to comment on whether La Crosse might pursue litigation to secure the parts and services required. For the time being, it seems the city will keep spinning its wheels.

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