The Triangle’s newest electric buses will get their first public viewing Tuesday
The Triangle’s fledgling fleet of electric buses will get bigger this winter, and you’ll get a chance to see the newest buses on Tuesday.
GoTriangle will unveil its first two electric buses in the plaza outside Raleigh Union Station, at the corner of West and Martin streets downtown. After a few words from Mayor Mary-Ann Baldwin, U.S. Rep. David Price and others at 10 a.m., the public will be invited to have a look at the buses, inside and out.
The buses, built by Proterra Inc., a California company with a plant in Greenville, S.C., will bring the number of public electric buses in the region to six. Raleigh-Durham International Airport put four electric buses into service last May, shuttling travelers between remote parking lots and the terminals.
Chapel Hill Transit and Duke University expect to add a total of five electric buses to their fleets later this year, and GoRaleigh has ordered five electric buses that it hopes to have on the road by the end of 2020 or early 2021.
The public agencies are buying their buses with the help of federal grants. Electric buses are more expensive; GoRaleigh expects each of its Proterra buses to cost about $800,000, or as much as $300,000 more than the typical diesel bus they will replace.
But electric buses are cheaper to run, largely because of lower fuel costs, and cost less to maintain. In the first five months, RDU estimates it saved $23,474 on fuel and another $2,240 in maintenance costs on its Proterra buses, according to John Connell, the airport’s vice president of operational asset management.
Connell told the airport’s governing board this fall that RDU had spent $8,480 for electricity to charge the buses during that time, but saved $31,954 by not using 14,476 gallons of diesel. He said the buses were getting about 220 miles on a single charge, more than enough to cover a driver’s full shift.
GoTriangle expects to put its electric buses into service by late January or early February, according to spokeswoman Burgetta Wheeler. The buses initially will be used on routes that run only during peak hours, rather than all day, Wheeler said, until GoTriangle is confident in their range on a single charge.
This story was originally published January 6, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
