SEPTA may lose the $24 million it spent on structurally flawed Proterra electric battery buses now that the troubled manufacturer has filed for bankruptcy, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The 25 buses were pulled from Philadelphia’s streets in January 2020 after six months when SEPTA found cracks in their frames and other problems. One of the electric battery buses burst into flames late last year in a South Philly depot. The transit agency and Proterra had been negotiating over repairs that would get the EV buses back in service. Those talks have not produced a solution, and they were canceled abruptly after the Aug. 7 bankruptcy filing, SEPTA officials said. “At this point we don’t know what the path forward would be and what SEPTA’s [legal] remedies are, and we can’t say when the buses would come back into service,” said Andrew Busch, an agency spokesperson. The company says it intends to continue operating, seeking more capital or a buyer while holding creditors at bay. Some transit agencies say Proterra has told them buses they ordered will be delivered. SEPTA was an earlier purchaser of the company’s buses, and they were in use on several routes. Busch said there had been “progress” in talks over getting Proterra to fix the sidelined buses.
