Surprise: Charlotte’s First EV Fire Truck Not Working After One Month

If only someone had warned that doing this stuff was a Bad Idea

Charlotte’s first electric fire truck is out of commission after a month

A little more than a month after the Charlotte Fire Department held a ceremony celebrating the city’s first all-electric fire station and fire truck, the city’s electric fire truck is in the shop.

A spokesperson for Charlotte Fire confirmed to Channel 9 that the city’s electric fire engine is currently out of service while warrant-related items are being addressed. (they proofread as well in the story as I often do in my headlines)

“As with any newly delivered, highly specialized apparatus incorporating emerging technology, minor adjustments and corrections are handled in coordination with the manufacturer under warranty,” a Charlotte Fire spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Charlotte Fire says response coverage has not been impacted. A reserve engine is in service to ensure an uninterrupted response.

In 2022, the Charlotte City Council spent $1.9 million to purchase the electric fire truck.

A new fossil fueled fire truck typically goes for $750K to $2 million, with that upper range being the big hook and ladder types. The one Charlotte purchased is your standard sized truck. So, about double the cost. If I’m spending $1.9 million I’m kinda expecting it to, you know, work from the get go. Not need “minor adjustments and corrections” after a month. This is not a base model, assembly line built sedan. It’s not a $700 guitar which I will take over to Harry’s to get it set up (not always necessary out of the box). If I buy a $1400 Warren Demartini blood and skull, I’m not going to be upset if I need to get it set up a little bit. Floyd Rose, string height without buzz. If I have to polish the frets it’s going back. If it’s the $3,700 version, it better be f’ing perfect.

Funny, though, that the EV truck is down right after that big snow and freeze in the Charlotte area. Let’s not forget this piece from January 2024

There is a two word phrase to accurately describe the electric buses sold to transit agencies, and the first of those two words is “cluster”.

e Biden Administration and the global warming climate change activists want to force all new vehicles sold in the United States to be zero-emission come 2035, because they believe that our personal choices don’t matter, but even now they are pushing plug-in electrics, seemingly unconcerned with the possible drawbacks. From Fox Business:

Electric buses are sitting unused in cities across the US; here’s why

(snip)

I did snag an image from the article, which amusingly tells us that the zero emissions are “Clearly Better,” which I suppose is true . . . because buses sitting parked truly are zero emission!

True, true, are zero emissions. There’s more to that article. And here’s from a couple days ago

The story practically wrote itself: a northern state buys electric buses, winter arrives, and the fleet ends up parked behind the depot. The Daily Mail framed Vermont’s experience as an ideological failure – “a liberal stronghold wasting $8 million on buses that freeze in the cold.” It’s a sharp headline, but it obscures more than it reveals.

The underlying facts are real enough. Green Mountain Transit sidelined five electric buses after a manufacturer-identified battery-welding defect raised fire-safety concerns. Cold weather didn’t help; range loss in sub-freezing temperatures is well-documented across the industry. But the narrative that Vermont’s buses “froze” because of political naïveté misses the technical and operational context that actually matters.

Electric buses in cold climates face three predictable stresses: battery heating loads, hilly terrain, and charging logistics. These aren’t ideological problems—they’re engineering challenges. Transit agencies in Minnesota, Québec, and Alberta have been wrestling with the same physics, often successfully, by pairing larger battery packs with depot pre-heating, on-route chargers, and route redesigns. Vermont’s buses weren’t undone by winter so much as by a manufacturer recall layered on top of an early-stage pilot program.

They paid $8 million for the 5 buses and infrastructure. For over a million a pop they should damned will work like the aforementioned Blood and Skull guitar. Like a $4000 Les Paul Supreme (love the wine color, almost a Blood Moon, hate gold pickups, stopbar, etc), $1800 for a Fender American Professional II (that’s about the price point for a “don’t need to do a thing” Fender). Really, buying these buses and fire trucks is like going to the Fender or Gibson custom shops, getting a custom made Jackson or Charvel, a super top end ESP. You do not expect any issues. Not for that money. Of course, the guitar stores and makers are not forcing people into the expensive ones. I can get a nice Epiphone Prophecy or Jackson Adrian Smith in green (seriously considering that one along with a demo Charvel Sunburst) for a good price.