The electric buses keep breaking down, but Warren Buffett keeps getting paid because the Oracle from Omaha was smart enough to realize that the best investments are the ones backed by taxpayer dollars.
During the Obama administration, Buffett invested $232 million in a Chinese company called Build Your Dreams, which specializes in building batteries for electric buses. And plenty of liberal cities have bought fleets of the pricey vehicles.
Take Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. Tired of a polluted playground, the ultra-wealthy demanded electric buses for their summer colony. With a $545,000 grant from the state, the Vineyard Transportation Authority bought six electric buses from BYD—two 30-foot short buses at a cost of $529,418 each, and four larger 35-foot buses at $729,000 each.
With those purchases, Martha’s Vineyard became the first Massachusetts community to commit to an all-electric fleet.
The little electric fleet rolled onto the island in June and then headed to the shop one by one shortly afterward. As the Martha’s Vineyard Times reports, four of the buses experienced technical problems when drivers tried to turn on the headlights and a fifth remains in the shop.
But the island community should consider itself lucky. The routes are shorter at Martha’s Vineyard, meaning the buses fall apart more slowly. Similar fleets in Los Angeles and Albuquerque turned out to be lemons that couldn’t really climb up hills, couldn’t drive reliably past 100 miles, and generally couldn’t stay on the road.
Buffett and company are largely sheltered from these setbacks though. Quality takes a backseat when customers, possessed by environmentalist fever dreams, spend taxpayer money on vanity products.
