– credit, courtesy Metro Transit
In January, GNN reported on how the brain-disabling cold of the Norwegian winter couldn’t affect the performance of an all-electric ferryboat plying the waters in the country’s far northern district of Finmark.
Well closer to home, a fleet of all-electric buses in Wisconsin have made it to the Vernal Equinox with similar performance statistics: the buses ran morning to night in a city that averages 18 days a year with below-zero temperatures.
That being said, Grist.com, which brought the story from the streets of the state capital of Madison, added that electrification of bus fleets across America has been a rocky road, with cold weather sitting squarely among the challenges transportation departments have faced.
Batteries don’t like the cold, and it was only a few years ago that Madison’s Metro Transit buses would routinely beep-beep to a halt. A pilot program secured 3 electric buses from a company called Proterra in 2020, and problems were rife right from the off. Proterra declared bankruptcy in 2024, and the city switched suppliers to New Flyer.
With a suite of advancements, including overhead charging lines on the most common routes and improved battery capacity and insulation, taking a bus in the winter of 2026 was just as reliable as it used to be, just much quieter and with much less diesel smoke.
Whether one agrees that removing internal-combustion vehicles will do anything to change the climate, the lack of engine noise and exhaust makes for not only a more pleasant atmosphere for those onboard and outside, but a healthy one as well, since frequent bus commuters are at a higher risk of lung and heart disease than motorists.
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Bus commuters spend a lot of time waiting by bus stops where, shifting in and out of 1st and 2nd gears, diesel-powered buses belch out the most fine-particulate matter, which has been shown to lead to these diseases.
When the New Flyer coaches that travel along the west-east routes reach the last stop, the driver gets a brief layover of 20 minutes to get out and stretch their legs or have a coffee. At the same time, a robotic arm reaches up and plugs into a pantograph charging port over head that can replace about 15% of the bus’s charge in as many minutes.
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Those that travel on the north-south lines don’t have the chargers, and finish the day’s load with about 20-25% charge remaining. Even on the coldest days this winter, no coach suffered more than 10% additional battery loss, and there were no grounded trips due to cold affecting battery performance. Trips were interrupted or canceled for other reasons, but not for the weather.
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