Electric bus company Proterra has filed for bankruptcy.
The EV company was supported by Biden’s Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.
Biden previously said Proterra would be the future of America and held a virtual tour of the company’s South Carolina factory.
“Right now we’re running way behind China, but you guys are getting us in the game,” Biden said during the tour.
Biden continued, “We’re going to end up owning the future, I think, if we keep doing what we’re doing.”
Despite the backing from the White House, the company filed for bankruptcy, claiming “various market and macroeconomic headwinds” have affected business.
“While our best-in-class EV and battery technologies have set an industry standard, we have faced various market and macroeconomic headwinds, that have impacted our ability to efficiently scale all of our opportunities simultaneously,” Proterra CEO Gareth Joyce said in a statement.
“As commercial vehicles accelerate toward electrification, we look forward to sharpening our focus as a leading EV battery technology supplier for the benefit of our many stakeholders,” Joyce said.
Reporting from Breitbart:
Proterra’s electric buses made national headlines several times in recent years for various failures. A Michigan school district claimed the buses had “a lot of downtime and performance issues” and weren’t “fully on the road” during an April presentation. In 2021, a California transit agency cited a “thermal event” as a reason to potentially retire an entire fleet of Proterra’s electric buses after one of them burst into flames while charging. Additionally, Philadelphia sidelined an entire fleet of 25 Proterra buses the city spent $24 million on due to “structural and logistical problems” with the buses.
