MCTS Electric Buses Still Have Battery Problems

MCTS Nova Bus LFSe+. Photo taken July 13, 2025 by Graham Kilmer.

The Milwaukee County Transit System (MCTS) has had to take its battery electric buses off the road once again.

The system’s 14 Nova Bus LFSe+ battery electric buses are having their batteries replaced at the manufacturer’s expense following a recall by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, a spokesperson for MCTS told Urban Milwaukee. There were seven BEBs awaiting battery replacement as of July 23. All of the system’s buses are expected to return to the road before the end of August.

It’s the second time in less than two years that the buses have had their batteries replaced by the manufacturer. The transit system runs the BEBs on the Connect 1 bus rapid transit service. They have only been in use since June 2023.

The county became interested in BEB technology while it was planning the Connect 1. The buses were part of the county’s application for federal funding and their purchase constituted the county’s local match for the $40.9 million grant that provided the bulk of the funding to develop the nine-mile bus route. There was only one BEB running on the Connect 1 Monday: bus 1013.

But even before the grant was awarded, or the buses purchased, the county board tried to push the transit system to begin electrifying the fleet. MCTS has 15 BEBs instead of 11 because former county board chairman Theodore Lipscomb, Sr. added funding to the 2019 budget to increase the county’s initial order from 11 to 15. A year later, the board adopted another amendment authored by Lipscomb that made it the county’s policy to pursue a complete electrification of the fleet.

In 2021, the county placed an order for the initial 15 BEBS with Nova Bus, a Canadian manufacturer and a subsidiary of Volvo Group. The same year, the county board walked back the policy for full electrification. The plan was to get some experience with the new technology before making a major commitment to it.

MCTS lost a BEB in 2024 when a driver smashed into bus 1010 near the intersection of N. 35th Street and W. Wisconsin Avenue.

The Nova Bus LFSe+ vehicles have an advertised battery distance of 247 miles. MCTS estimated that with 11 buses running on the Connect 1, the system would save 67,000 gallons of diesel fuel a year.

Less than a month after going into service in 2023, one of the new BEBs needed a battery replacement. Then in late August, Nova Bus notified MCTS of a potential problem with the batteries and all 11 were pulled from the road pending replacement at the manufacturer’s expense.

By early 2024, transportation officials decided to pump the brakes on BEB technology. Based on MCTS’s own trouble with BEBs and larger market forces, the system has since focused on procurement of Gillig clean-diesel buses for all bus replacements.

A major problem for the county was that Nova Bus had left the U.S. market. The manufacturers left were facing supply chain issues or technology problems of their own. Transportation officials did not feel confident about the vehicles available in the marketplace.

At the time, MCTS was still planning a second bus rapid transit line called Connect 2. The unreliability, and high cost (approximately $1.2 million per bus), of the BEBs compared to clean-diesel, led the system to turn against the technology as it put together its plan for the 19 mile route.

The system eventually scuttled the Connect 2 project for lack of operating funding. Officials didn’t think it would be able to afford providing high-frequency bus service along the route. Federal funds being used to plan the project were instead moved into the MCTS operating budget. The move was supposed to prevent a budget deficit until 2028. But the system ran into an operating budget deficit this year, and is not ruling out service reductions in 2026.