When leading U.S. electric transit bus manufacturer Proterra filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in August 2023, it sparked widespread public scrutiny of the hundreds of millions in government funding the company had received over its 19-year history. For taxpayers, transit agencies, and policymakers, the collapse raised urgent questions: Where did all the public funding go? What claims do government entities have in the bankruptcy proceedings? And what does this mean for future public investments in zero-emission transportation? This guide breaks down every key detail of Proterra’s government funding sources, related bankruptcy claims, and broader implications for public EV programs.
h/t to Roaddog: Joe Biden found an electric bus to love that is as frail as he.
failed battery plants. failed wind generators. EV plant subsidies and rebates.
has anyone tallied how much $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ has been throw at and wasted on this fantasy?
“Has anyone tallied how much $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ has been thrown at and wasted on this fantasy?”
“Thrown at and wasted” or just plain stolen?
Here’s a partial list of companies that received $ from the Obama administration. The total for these companies alone was $7.5 billion. (http://dailysignal.com/2012/10/18/president-obamas-taxpayer-backed-green-energy-failures/):
1. A123 Systems ($279 million)*
2. Abound Solar ($400 million)*
3. Amonix ($5.9 million)*
4. Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)*
5. Babcock and Brown ($178 million)*
6. Beacon Power ($43 million)*
7. Brightsource ($1.6 billion) Developers of the Tonopah solar bird cooker
8. ECOtality ($126.2 million)*
9. EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
10. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
11. Evergreen Solar ($25 million)*
12. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
13. Fisker Automotive ($529 million)*
14. GreenVolts ($500,000)*
15. Johnson Controls ($299 million)
16. Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)*
17. LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)
18. Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)*
19. Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
20. Navistar ($39 million)
21. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)*
22. Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
23. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
24. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
25. Range Fuels ($80 million)*
26. Satcon ($3 million)*
27. Solyndra ($535 million)* After tax write offs, the loss to taxpayers was $849 million
28. SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
29. Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
30. SunPower ($1.2 billion)*
31. Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)*
32. Vestas ($50 million)
33. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)*
*Companies that either declared bankruptcy or had to be sold to avoid it.
Here is how the leftists are transferring the wealth from fossil fuels to alternative energy …
Notably, Biden’s soon-to-be Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm served on the board of Proterra and walked away with a $1.6 million profit on her shares in the company. (One of the Oligarchs Bernie Sanders is constantly ranting about.)
Thanks roaddog for reminding us of the massive transfer of wealth triggered by the manufactured climate change hysteria.
The left is transferring wealth to themselves.
With a track record like that, you can be sure the City of Ottawa will be ordering them.
I believe they are already malfunctioning in Toronto.
Take a look at Rivian sometime. That one cost Alex Soros (who, btw, is a complete idiot) about $2 Billion when the company value took a nose dive. But, that didn’t discourage the DOE, who promptly floated Rivian a $6 Billion loan to build a new manufacturing plant in Georgia. For those keeping score, Rivian never turned a profit. In fact, since its inception it has a NET LOSS of $26.71 BILLION.
And yet, they continue to expand and diversify thanks to taxpayer looting….into a dead market. The only way that makes sense is if there is money going into pockets elsewhere.
yep.
and some of it out of those pockets and back into the pockets of those that provided it.
who would that be? is this a form of campaign financing?
rot everywhere. new technologies? new forms of rot.
hyperinflation looms as the debt rises like an F22
insurmountable, accelerating debt -> hyperinflation. tell me lm wrong.
it will NOT be pretty when the ‘benchmark’ currency is the one drowning in decimal point places.
I pulled in to my local Trader Joe’s last week, and I kid you not … 3 Rivian Truck/SUV’s or whatever parked all in a row. And no, there is no charging station there. I assume they all mined the State and Federal subsidies and dealer rebates. Why else would somebody buy one of those hideous vehicles.
And out here on the Left Coast, Crown Corporation BC Hydro has admitted, after a Freedom of Information exercise, that the electrification of their light vehicle fleet is about 3% of what the Gubbermint wants the rest of us to cough up the big bucks for. Hypocrites.
The green disaster isn’t just with EV’s. Aberdeen Council (the real one, in Scotland) have offloaded their fleet of Hydrogen buses for around £825,000 because they cannot find the fuel to power them.
Not a bad return on the £13.9 million it cost to buy them………………
The biggest problem relating to electric buses and electric haul-trucks is charging.
Quick google gives me ~15MW to charge 50 buses. Give or take, that’s a 20 -megawatt- service somebody has to build into a terminal.
City of Hamilton runs ~300 buses. 90 megawatts for the bus fleet. Per day! And that assumes the thing can run 24 hours on a single charge. If you only get 12 hours, you’re up to 180MW. Per day. Every. Fricking. Day.
The Steel Company of Canada at Nanticoke is listed as having a 65 megawatt capacity. That’s a steel mill.
The entire City of Hamilton uses ~600 megawatts a day.
If you want to run a bus fleet you gotta build enough power generation to power half a city.
And that is why the Proterra bus company went out of business. It’s not rocket surgery, right?