Chapel Hill Town Council will reconsider the possibility of electric buses as a way to reduce emissions.
Fred Lampe, Chapel Hill resident and retired business consultant, petitioned the council to further evaluate the possibility of electric buses in Chapel Hill in response to the plan to procure new diesel buses.
Brian Litchfield, director of Chapel Hill Transit, said they will procure heavy duty diesel buses this year in conjunction with GoTriangle and the city of Durham.
Lampe said this is what inspired him to petition the town council about the possibility of electric buses.
"It just occurred to me that that seems like a very strange thing to do in this day in age," Lampe said. "Diesel is a very, very old technology."
Lampe said his main concern is the outdated information in the town's current analysis.
“I don’t want to criticize what they provided me, but it just isn’t correct information," Lampe said.
The town's analysis estimates the cost of one electric bus as $1.2 million and each charging station as $1 million, but more recent studies suggest the cost has gone down.
Complete Coach Works, bus re-manufacturer, is now able to refurbish old buses to make them run on electric power for the same price as a new clean diesel bus — around $580,000.
