Ryan Popple, the CEO of Proterra, a South Carolina-based electric bus maker, dresses modestly like an accountant (a habit from his early training and career) and usually speaks in the calm, risk-averse manner dictated by the profession, but he's really a man on a mission — a techno-utopian to the core — and loves amping up reporters by saying, “Our technology could remove every single dirty diesel bus from cities." Popple wants to literally clean up a market that hauls 5.5 billion passengers every year in the US alone.
The opportunity is also international, since most major cities use the same fuel. Sure, politicians in Beijing and Delhi blame their city's choking smog on coal-fueled power and inversion layers, but the jumble of buses jamming the crowded city streets also adds to the soupy broth of pollutants. These lumbering behemoths also come with the financial headache of horrible gas mileage and high maintenance costs. Here's a striking example: US city buses average about 4.71 mpg, which means that older, less effecient fleets drop way below that disappointing number.
That's where Popple sees his opportunity, since he calls a city bus route the worst environment for an internal combustion engine burdened by stop-and-go driving, constant braking, and slow speeds.
Fighting transit legacy thinking
Proterra, which is a ten-year-old startup, makes a high-milage, $800,000 electric bus powered by lithium batteries, but until recently the company struggled to persuade transit agencies to take the early adopter plunge and buy it. That's because for decades, when nearly every bus ran on diesel, procurement officers had grown comfortable dropping $450,000 up front for a low-mileage, fuel guzzler, but now resist investing in "down-the-line" energy savings. Popple gave Bloomberg his "closer" pitch, “We’ve seen paybacks against diesel and hybrids in as little as two years and as long as six." (Although he was speaking just before the oil crash.)
Popple's and Proterra's problem is that the savings come on the back end. Since a city bus is driven between 40,000 and 60,000 miles a year, if you dump the diesel for lithium batteries, fuel costs drop dramatically. The company’s quiet, emission-free bus can carry 80 passengers while only using $5,000 to $10,000 worth of power a year, compared with $50,000 for a diesel bus or $30,000 for natural gas. But most agencies still make the cost comparison the old-fashion way.
When you look at the 12-year life of an urban bus, the numbers are compelling. A diesel bus sucks up between $500,000 and $600,000 of fuel, while the Proterra consumes only $80,000 worth of electricity. So at its current price, the lower-emission Proterra pays for itself over time by shying away from the fuel pump.
But there's more to Popple's vision. Proterra's buses are designed to provide service within a smallish urban core, which eneables the company to reduce weight and battery costs. This means that the small lithium battery only lasts about 50 miles on a full charge and requires a special $370,00 device that fully recharges the battery in only 10 minutes, and pays for itself over time.
The charging station's real beauty is that it allows the bus to run all day. Short urban routes have been set up to keep a moderate power reserve in the battery at all times, so after a two minute charging stop, while passengers board, the bus is off again. Last spring Proterra made headlines when one of its buses traveled 700 miles in 24 hours, getting a 27 miles-per-gallon-equivalent rating, more than five times the fuel economy of a typical bus.
A loyal early adopter
Popple says rechargeable buses have benefits that diesel's can only dream about, especially in California. By 2030, Gov. Jerry Brown wants to slash the state’s dependence on oil for transportation in half. And since California’s urban areas, particularly the legendary sprawl-zone radiating away from Los Angeles, struggle with air pollution. So decarbonizing the public transportation system would be a galvanizing achievment, pushing legacy-bound cities to get on the bus.
In 2010, Proterra finally shipped its first electric bus to Foothill Transit in eastern Los Angeles County (see video). At the time, the transit agency had 350 buses and wanted to start weaning them off natural gas. It used stimulus funds to buy three electric buses and a docking station.
"We’re in an air basin that has been very challenged with pollution,” Doran Barnes, Foothill Transit Executive Director, said. “Demand is high for zero-emissions technology that can handle the punishing demands of heavily traveled transit routes."
Since 2010, sales have picked up and 14 transit agencies have ordered the bus. Proterra celebrated this growth after it hit a recent a milestone, tallying more than 1,000,000 miles of commercial service. This is probably just the begining because analysts estimate that the global market for electric buses is $9.2 billion, growing to $19.5 billion by 2018.
A new California factory
Proterra is also expanding in the US. Just this year, the company received a $3 million grant from the California Energy Commission to set up a manufacturing plant in Los Angeles County. It will be located in Foothill Transit's territory — Proterra’s biggest customer — with 15 electric buses on the road now and another 15 on order.
This latest order will include a new bus designed with an extended-range battery. It will carry a maximum of 321 kWh of energy storage, or more than double the capacity of the original fast-charge battery. It allows the buses to travel 185 miles after a two-and-a-half-hour charge. "We now have all the tools available to look at a standard city and design an electric vehicle fleet that can meet all of their routes," Popple said.
Always the early adopter, Foothill Transit has extended its lead as North America's largest battery-electric bus fleet. "We've been operating these vehicles for five years and are eager to see what the next generation of tech can do," said Barnes, who enjoys becoming the first customer for Proterra's new extended-range vehicle, the Proterra CatalystXR.
"Based on the cost curve that I’m looking at — especially in batteries — this vehicle is going to get to the point where it’s going to wipe fossil fuel vehicles out of urban transit use,” said Popple, completely ditching the mild-mannered accountant's demanor and sounding more like Battery Man, a steely-eyed urban vigilante who smells victory in his battle to clean up the dirty streets and air of Gotham.
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Images: Proterra