Despite declining interest in electric passenger vehicles, some companies are pushing forward with the electrification of a much more challenging segment of the transport industry heavy machinery. Electrifying trucks, bulldozers, tractors, and excavators is tricky because of the amount of fuel they currently use to do their job. And yet, some companies say they are doing it—with lots and lots of batteries.
Yet reports of electric buses catching fire have not helped their case. Earlier this year, Transport for London had to withdraw e-buses from one of its routes because three of them caught fire in a month. It is not only fires, either. A lot of electric buses sit unused because they broke down or had defects and it was too expensive to repair them. There have also been cases when local authorities bought some and paid for them in full but never used them.