Electric School Bus SNAFU in Montgomery County, MD

This is a little green grifting story that broke on Monday (thanks to my buddy Sean), and I don't see it resolving itself yet. It's very strange.

Back in February of 2021, the Montgomery County Public Schools system (MCPS) proudly announced, like many school systems in the golden, halcyon days of the Biden climate cult era, that they were completely electrifying their school bus fleet. This was going to be the nation's largest 'procurement' of electric school buses by any district, which was trumpeted as delivering 'health and climate benefits' for the community.

The Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) Board of Education approved a contract on Tuesday evening with Highland Electric Transportation, a provider of turnkey electric fleet solutions, to convert its school bus fleet to all-electric, starting with 326 school buses over the next four years. This project represents the largest single procurement of electric school buses in North America.

Montgomery County Public Schools operates more than 200 schools and serves over 160,000 students county-wide. The MCPS Department of Transportation is one of the largest in the country, with an over 1,400 school bus fleet.

“I figured that at some point electric bus prices would fall enough to make it affordable, but this deal makes it affordable now” said Todd Watkins, Transportation Director for MCPS. Todd was recently named Transportation Director of the year by Student Transportation News, 2020.

“We are honored to partner with Montgomery County on this innovative program. We believe this project is a great example of the power of public-private partnerships as we seek to electrify school bus fleets across the country,” said Duncan McIntyre, CEO of Highland.

Under the agreement, Highland and its project partners, including Thomas Built Buses, Proterra, and Annapolis-based American Bus, will electrify all five of MCPS’ bus depots, supplying the electric school buses and charging infrastructure along with services including managed charging. Highland will purchase buses manufactured in North Carolina by Thomas Built Buses, which will be supplied and serviced by American Bus. Both companies have been long-time trusted suppliers and partners for the MCPS Department of Transportation. Designed, engineered, and manufactured in the United States by Thomas Built Buses, the all-electric Saf-T-Liner C2 Jouley school bus is powered by Proterra’s electric vehicle technology platform. The Jouley couples 226 kWh of total energy capacity with a Proterra Powered drivetrain to offer an industry-leading operating range of up to 135 miles on a single charge to meet the needs of school bus fleets.

Got all that (and do remember the players)?

Well, on Monday, an eleven-page report from the Maryland State Board of Education declared that the bus deal the MCPS school board had signed was illegal. The state board found numerous violations of the county's own bidding procedures, not to mention the unsavory association of two MCPS school officials with the deal who had been subsequently prosecuted and convicted of fraud.

A new report from the Maryland State Board of Education has declared Montgomery County Public Schools’ (MCPS) $168 million electric school bus contract “illegal,” saying the district violated its own procurement rules when awarding the deal.

The report found that the contract between MCPS and Highland Electric Fleets was “arbitrary, unreasonable, and in violation” of the district’s own bidding procedures. The district terminated the agreement over the summer, even though Highland had delivered just 285 of the 326 electric buses it was contracted to provide.

Additional questions about the deal surfaced last year, when a public report cast doubt on the district’s claim that transitioning from diesel to electric buses would result in “zero net change” in transportation costs. Soon after, the Montgomery County Inspector General raised further concerns, citing delivery delays and the district’s failure to recover $372,000 from Highland for buses that were not operational.

From a technical standpoint and knowing what I've learned over these past years, I'm assuming the buses, 'powered by Proterra's electric vehicle technology platform,' had to run into maintenance issues almost immediately, because Proterra went into bankruptcy in November of 2023 and while the company successfully managed to sell off their battery side of the house, the EV bus business went, well, BUSt.

...Other cities had similar issues. In Philadelphia, Proterra buses were sidelined in 2020 after the heavy batteries started to crack the vehicle chassis. (This summer, one of those vehicles started a fire while it was in storage, destroying 16 other buses.) In Austin, 46 new Proterra buses were taken out of service last year as the agency tried to sort out glitches. In Seattle, the buses had charging issues. In Duluth, Minnesota, they struggled on hills. In Miami, dozens of the vehicles now sit unused in storage.

As the buses broke down, transit agencies often couldn’t get the parts they needed for repairs. Then, in late 2023, Proterra declared bankruptcy. An EV company called Phoenix, which makes school buses but had no experience with heavy-duty transit buses, took over Proterra’s bus business, and it got even harder for cities to fix issues. Now, across the country, the buses are stranded in parking lots waiting to be auctioned off for parts. Some buses that cost as much as $1 million new are selling for $20,000.

Proterra’s collapse didn’t just leave cities stuck with expensive new technology that they couldn’t use. It slowed down efforts to cut emissions and made transit agencies more skeptical of climate tech startups trying to reinvent the bus—even though most of the problems had less to do with electrification than with flawed engineering and execution. Here’s what went wrong.

It turns out that it also left giddy Montgomery County officials stuck with the reality that many of the school buses they had just received were constantly inoperable. Even as brainwashed as they were over the prospect of electrifying the entire fleet, it was unacceptable considering what they'd cost the county and the mad shuffle finding replacements to do the number one job - get kids to school.

The breakdowns, lack of support, and maintenance issues finally drove the county to cancel the contract they had seemingly just signed.

The experiment was a complete BUSt.

In 2021, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) went all in on electric buses. Under former superintendent Monifa McKnight, they took a contract with Highland Electric Fleets, rolling out what was supposed to be the nation’s largest school bus electrification project. The plan was to swap the school system’s current 326 diesel school buses for all-electric ones by 2025, with Highland supplying and maintaining the fleet. 

It’s now 2025, and MCPS is pulling the plug on the project. Superintendent Thomas Taylor confirmed that the school system was scrapping the remaining part of the deal with Highland, canceling an order for 40 more buses that were supposed to be deployed for the 2026 - 2027 school year. MCPS now operates 285 electric buses, though the transition has faced various operational and logistical challenges. 

As always with these buses, maintenance and winter weather affected every aspect of the buses' performance.

Big promises, big problems

...As a result of these ambitious goals, the project faced a lot of problems. Highland struggled to meet delivery deadlines early on – the first buses, scheduled to arrive in summer 2021, didn’t show up until months later and after the school year had started. This occurred for three consecutive years – and MCPS ended up having to buy 90 new diesel buses for 14.75 million just to keep students moving.

Even when the buses did arrive, they didn’t always work. Over the span of two years, electric school buses broke down mid-route more than 280 times. The repairs of these buses took far longer than the five-day window outlined in the contract, averaging 13 days per bus. Although the contract allowed for penalties, MCPS did not enforce them, missing out on more than 372,000 dollars in potential fees.

Unforeseen circumstances 

Winter weather further complicated the operation of the electric fleets. Cold temperatures made it difficult for electric buses to maintain their range, as they lost 10 to 20 percent of their charge before even starting their routes (due to the additional energy required to heat the battery before charging). This impacted reliability, particularly for longer routes in which buses struggled to complete a full day of service on a single charge.

 Additionally, there were problems regarding the charging infrastructure itself – which didn’t fully account for the increased demand that cold weather placed on the buses. Some depots had as many as three buses assigned to a single charging station, forcing some buses to remain off the road when charging slots weren’t available. 

Beyond these challenges, MCPS also cited the need for special education buses as a key factor in its decision to terminate the contract. “Our district has an increasing need for special education buses,” MCPS said in a statement. “The current product does not adequately meet the mileage requirements necessary to effectively serve our students.” With the electric fleet’s limited range and reliability concerns, MCPS determined that continuing with the Highland contract would not be in the best interest of student transportation needs.

Highland Electric Fleets declined requests for interviews, citing the confidential nature of the contract and its termination.

Winter weather again. I've done I have no idea how many stories on electric buses in winter weather, and they never end well. And you'd think that the company would realize they'd have to compensate in a district where it gets 'cold' as far as the charging stations they put in, but, then again, I'm going to figure they put in as few as possible to maximize profits, not efficiency for the district.

Call me cynical. Go ahead, I can take it.

So MCPS had to spend additional money to purchase 90 new earth-killing but warm and reliable diesel buses to keep kids getting safely to school on time during the entire time this imbroglio was playing out, they never collected the $372K in penalties for three years of late repair turnarounds they could have tapped the company for per the contract terms, and - I guess lucky damn thing - they never took delivery of all the buses.

And now, even though the rest of the contract was canceled, they still have buses they're stuck with, which now have an 'illegal' contract, per the state school board.

The local reporter who broke the story did a great job of putting this all together in three minutes.

WATCH: I have the exclusive on a new report from the Maryland State Board of Education which declared Montgomery County Public Schools’ $168 million electric school bus contract “illegal,” saying the district violated its own procurement rules when awarding the deal.

The report… pic.twitter.com/z5pINvLPoE

— Scott Taylor (@ScottTaylorTV) November 11, 2025

The part that should have Montgomery County taxpayers seething is that the MCPS is still doing business with Highland Electric Fleet, thanks to the buses they DO have, which, thanks to the contract they signed, the school district does not own outright. 

They lease. They lease everything.

...Despite terminating the contract, MCPS will continue doing business with Highland for years to come. The district does not own the buses or charging stations — it leases them, meaning taxpayers remain on the hook for an annual lease payment.

It's amazing what it takes for people to start asking 'What are the long-term costs for this? What have we already spent?'

What is the total county cost over the term of the lease?

— 8 Brave Mice (@SmoleyDG) November 11, 2025

You can bet they're asking now.

Sheesh.

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