Biden-backed electric vehicle company files for bankruptcy
By Paul Homewood
Another Solyndra!
President Biden frequently extolled an electric vehicle company — in which his energy secretary heavily invested — before it declared bankruptcy on Monday.
Bay Area-based electric bus and battery maker Proterra filed for Chapter 11, with CEO Gareth Joyce citing “various market and macroeconomic headwinds that have impacted our ability to efficiently scale.”
The EV firm, which sold more than 1,300 electric buses to public transit systems in the US and Canada, was valued at $1.6 billion when Biden, 80, took office in January 2021 — but closed with a market value of $362 million, according to Reuters.
In 2021, the president pledged more than $10 billion from his $1.9 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan toward zero-emission transit and school bus programs.
He has promoted Proterra several times since taking office, and once virtually toured a facility.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm raked in $1.6 million in profit after selling hundreds of thousands of shares in May 2021, months after she had first pledged to do so.
“Right now we’re running way behind China, but you guys are getting us in the game,” Biden said in April 2021. “We’re going to end up owning the future, I think, if we keep doing what we’re doing.”
At the time of the tour, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm held between $1 million and $5 million in stock of the electric vehicle company, The Washington Free Beacon reported, prompting ethics concerns and calls for her divestment.
Granholm raked in $1.6 million in profit after selling hundreds of thousands of shares in May 2021, months after she had first pledged to do so. She served on Proterra’s board from February 2017 until just before her Senate confirmation hearing in January 2021.
Philadelphia purchased a fleet of Proterra buses in 2019 that had to be taken out of service in February of the following year due to defects, the local National Public Radio affiliate reported.
According to WHYY, sources familiar with the situation blamed a defect in the buses’ plastic chassis that led to cracking.
https://nypost.com/2023/08/08/biden-backed-electric-vehicle-company-files-for-bankruptcy/
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Common theme that without a reliable source of income these battery vehicle only companies are not viable.
“without a reliable source of income”
AKA taxpayer subsidies.
No, not really as even with wads of taxpayers cash the battery only companies have failed. I was referring to making cars people actually want to buy which contain engines. Ford for example can fund their battery car fantasy from their sales but even for them there is a question over how long they can tolerate the losses.
And subsidies
And banning anything resembling competition. But even that is not guaranteed as the market will not buy products it doesn’t want.
Who would allow their children on an electric-bus if they knew how dangerous they were? E-buses should be banned (or binned).
Likewise with EV’s . Thank goodness neither of our sons has opted for one, so our grandchildren might survive
I fully agree. People have been brainwashed and have no idea how dangerous EVs really are.
I’m not exactly keen on the idea of hybrids either. More to go wrong. Battery takes space and is a risk.
Have people not realised there is a reason why electric bikes and scooters are banned from underground trains?
Phillip, either that or made to conform to hybrid technology. Hybrids appear to work O.K.
https://www.metroinfo.co.nz/travel-and-fares-info/sustainability/electric-buses-all-you-need-to-know/
Christchurch New Zealand buses
I remember electric trolley buses in London Post WWII but these here in NZ are not on trolleys. I don’t know how the drivers like them.
Any company making products that the actual market does not want or even need is not going to survive, at least not without subsidies, grants and bans of anything even resembling competition.
A thought just struck me. Do “unfair competition” laws exist? That could be a route to legal action
There is a possibility that Biden might declare a ” Climate Emergency “.https://theweek.com/climate-change/1025697/biden-national-climate-emergency-declaration
Which is what the Marxist UN wants so that they can take control of everything .
The left wing politicians can then put everybodys money into unreliable energy , take over the oil companies and basically enforce the Net Zero insanity .
How many other countries will have to follow suit .
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
WB Yeats
IDAU
I’ve always appreciated Yeats (grew up with, ‘he wishes for his Cloths of Heaven…) But that quote was new – and quite gave me the shivers. Thank you. Seriously.
The whole poem is called The Second Coming. Like Kipling’s Gods of the Copybook Headings, it seems strangely prophetic of our modern times.
Unfair competition does exist and it is enforced by law.
Are we going to have to wait until a car ferry sinks or a motorway tunnel is engulfed in flames and poisonous fumes before these vehicles are banned?
I actually need to use a car ferry next month. Perhaps I need to ask the ferry companies if they have banned EVs and if not why not. I am actually in Africa as I write and there are very few EVs (if I see ONE in a week, that is a lot), and those that are on the roads all have plates from European countries. The vast majority, even those with European plates, are proper cars with diesel and/or petrol engines.
>>Are we going to have to wait until a car ferry sinks
Last week I wrote to Brittany Ferries asking if they have carried out a risk assessment on EVs. I quoted the fact that a Norwegian Ferry company has banned them on their ships. I also reminded them of the two ships that were carrying EVs have caught fire and were totally destroyed this year.
I await their reply with interest.
Hmmm so the Energy Sec hid her shares for a while, sounds very dodgy at best
And then the whistle-blowers did her a favour, by forcing her to sell out at the top without her being accused of insider trading!
A plastic chassis! FFS!!!
And flammable plastic comes from oil which is to be stopped ?? Then we could make the buses with sustainable wood – lol
Another one bites the dust…!
“Headwinds”? That’ll be global warming then.
Call Philly. 25 EV busses. Two, as an experiment, would have been smart.
Where are they now?
They could dump them in the ocean and make an EV-Reef for electric eels.
Set them up as fancy storage spaces, without the battery. That’s a business that actually makes money.
1.5 Billion US if I am correct that company got and the Biden misAdministration has no interest to find out what happened which speaks volumes. I am sure a pretty penny went on making sure the werk-forse was diverse and for those who were not diverse there was 8 hours a day of diversity training.
I smell a whole grain silo full of rats….
As long as the big guy gets his 10% it’s all good.
Laundering taxpayer money to give to Friends of Obama.
Obama has managed a ‘third term’ with his puppet, Biden, and is now reported to be seeking a FOURTH term through his wife, Michelle!!! I just wonder if there’s some room in there for the benighted Hillary.
“various market and macroeconomic headwinds that have impacted our ability to efficiently scale.” says the CEO.
I had to laugh. Such a nice way of saying “we made a real sh1te of it”…
How are Secretary Granholm’s Proterra investments doing now?
Bit of a fake story though. The share price was $26 in mid-January 2021 but only $14 in mod May, so she lost money not selling when she said she would.
At what price did she buy them is the only thing that matters.
Not selling at the peak is something many speculators do.
Yes, I said – above – “sold at the top” without actually bothering to look at the gyrations of the share price. $14 is still a lot better than $0!
Solyndra, US solar panel maker – “In 2009, the Obama administration co-signed $535 million loans to Solyndra.
The company filed for bankruptcy on September 1, 2011”.
I believe it also took $700+ million of private money with it too.
https://www.metroinfo.co.nz/travel-and-fares-info/sustainability/electric-buses-all-you-need-to-know/
Christchurch New Zealand buses
I remember electric trolley buses in London Post WWII but these here in NZ are not on trolleys. I don’t know how the drivers like them.
https://www.metroinfo.co.nz/travel-and-fares-info/sustainability/electric-buses-all-you-need-to-know/
Christchurch New Zealand buses
I remember electric trolley buses in London Post WWII but these here in NZ are not on trolleys. I don’t know how the drivers like them.
( sorry about glitch in posting. Must be gremlins)
Can’t say it’s a surprise.
Climate watchdog head behind boiler ban still has gas heating in his home
Chris Stark said the cost of heat pumps is too high and that it is ‘very difficult’ to install them in existing flats like his
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/12/heat-pumps-chris-stark-campaign-uses-gas-boiler-himself/