A tight, state-issued deadline for Ocean City to begin transitioning its entire bus fleet from diesel to electric is no longer expected after pushback over high costs.
“We are still taking the stance that it’s in our best interest to buy diesel until any mandate comes down from the state that requires us to buy electric,” Transit Manager Rob Shearman told members of the city’s Transportation Committee at a meeting last week.
Last fall, Shearman reported that all evidence pointed to state transportation officials requiring systems to begin buying only electric buses beginning this calendar year when replacing and replenishing fleets. Now, though, the tides have changed.
“The state had already mandated Baltimore City become electric and tried to extend that mandate across local systems,” Shearman explained last week. “Local systems kind of pushed back because of the costs, especially to the rural systems that would need to replace one diesel with two electrics to be able to run their all-day service.”
In turn, the mandates are getting rolled back “because of the immense cost of transitioning to electric,” Shearman said.
typical waste of money in Maryland with buying electric fleet vehicles. Electric DOES NOT WORK.