Elk Grove wants a refund after hybrid-bus fires

The once-vaunted hybrid gasoline-electric buses that powered the early days of Elk Grove's transit service are languishing in a city corporation yard over city concerns about buses catching fire.

The city reportedly is demanding that manufacturers refund much of the $10 million it spent on 21 buses, most of which were on hand to launch Elk Grove's e-tran service in January 2005.

The hybrids, all older, refurbished buses, replaced Sacramento Regional Transit buses that city officials said weren't giving residents their money's worth. From the start there were breakdowns and delays. And the fires really upset the city.

In 33 months, hybrid buses caught fire four times and recorded 25 to 30 "thermal incidents," the city said. Manufacturers dispute those numbers.

In September, the underside of a bus caught fire. A fire crew arrived, and passengers were safely evacuated.

That fire was the last straw, interim City Manager Cody Tubbs told The Bee. He said he immediately sidelined the troubled hybrid fleet.

"My responsibility is to the safety of our riders, and No. 2, it is to the taxpayers," Tubbs said Thursday. "Those are the objectives. Public dollars utilized for the purchase of equipment that has not served us well ought to be recouped."

The parked buses now symbolize an ignoble end to a grand city goal of becoming the first U.S. city with an all-hybrid, clean-running transit fleet.

It accomplished that goal, for a time. But by the end of 2005, rapid ridership growth prompted the city to purchase 10 diesel buses to meet demand.

"I think everybody was trying to be leading edge and really green and environmentally friendly," Councilman Jim Cooper said of the 2004 purchase decision. "That was the big issue."

Meanwhile, passengers were being stranded by hybrid buses that leaked rain in winter, lost air conditioning in summer and at times stopped running outright.

Today the city's fleet numbers 68 buses providing close to 5,500 rides daily. None is a hybrid.

Some riders say they face fewer frustrations these days.

"I can't remember the last time I had to get rescued," said Elk Grove commuter Denny Smith, who said he was stranded twice by broken-down buses en route to his job at the California Department of Veterans Affairs in Sacramento. "It has been a while."

The manufacturers complain that many of the hybrid fleet problems were tied to poor maintenance.

Only three fires occurred, and not all were related to the buses' hybrid device, an electrical booster known as an ultra-capacitor, said Vice President Justin Spragg of ISE Corp., maker of the device.

The device works with a 145-kilowatt generator. Every time the driver applies the brakes, the booster is recharged.

There also were far fewer than the 25 thermal incidents the city cites, said Spragg. He said none was major.

"I think we're aware of a couple of instances that would be properly described as a thermal incident," Vice President Macy Neshati of Complete Coach Works said in an interview. "But 'fire' is like flames and evacuation and buses burning to the ground. We certainly haven't had that."

Complete Coach Works refurbished the buses, using the ISE device, and sold them to the city.

Soon after the September incident, Neshati said, the companies were thwarted in efforts to inspect the bus and complete the warranty work.

ISE, in response, hired consultant Bob Waste, a professor at California State University, Sacramento, and lobbyist Dennis Albiani to make ISE's case with the city.

Tubbs said he regularly received their calls. The city wanted to talk with the manufacturers – after completing its own evaluations – to reach a mutually acceptable solution, he said.

In mid-March, the two sides met.

Three weeks later, ISE's Spragg said, ISE and Complete Coach Works received a "surprising letter" in which the city advised, "We're not interested in negotiating anymore."

"Either buy the buses back," Spragg characterized the letter, "or we're going to pursue legal action."

A copy went to MV Transportation of Fairfield, the city's contract maintenance company.

Asked whether maintenance on the buses was an issue for the city, Tubbs responded, "That goes to potential litigation. I can't discuss those."

A spokeswoman for MV said the company tried to dissuade the city from buying the hybrids.

"We advised the city to purchase CNG (compressed natural gas) buses to meet the new air quality standards," said MV spokeswoman Nikki Frenney. "Instead … they bought old buses and refurbished them with a hybrid engine.

"Those buses immediately began having problems."

She said the company is "stunned that the city would lump us in with the manufacturer of the buses that we told them we didn't think would work."

City officials are determined to recover their losses.

"We're looking to basically recoup our investment in the buses one way or the other," Councilman Pat Hume said in an interview. That could include having the buses refurbished for another transit agency, he said.

ISE and Complete Coach Works executives say the buses have redundant fire detection and suppression capabilities and are as safe as any on the road.

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• Call The Bee's Loretta Kalb, (916) 478-2641.