LIVE from I‑5: We’re on our way to Olympia to turn in signatures for Initiative 1631

Good morn­ing from Inter­state 5!

In just a few short hours, the Yes on I‑1631 coali­tion will be sub­mit­ting peti­tions to qual­i­fy to the Novem­ber statewide bal­lot a ground­break­ing ini­tia­tive that would put a price on pol­lu­tion in Wash­ing­ton State and use the rev­enue raised to fund a just and respon­si­ble tran­si­tion to a clean ener­gy economy.

To cel­e­brate the suc­cess­ful sig­na­ture dri­ve for I‑1631 and invite Wash­ing­to­ni­ans to join us in vot­ing YES this Novem­ber, a del­e­ga­tion of activists and lead­ers from coali­tion part­ner orga­ni­za­tions are trav­el­ing togeth­er to Olympia on a bat­tery-pow­ered Pro­ter­ra Cat­a­lyst E2 elec­tric bus.

We left our gath­er­ing point near the Rainier Beach Link Light Rail Sta­tion about twen­ty min­utes ago and are cur­rent­ly pass­ing through Fife.

As we made our way south on I‑5, I talked to Pro­ter­ra’s Rich Feld­man about our high-tech means of get­ting to the Sec­re­tary of State’s Elec­tions Annex.

Feld­man told me the Pro­ter­ra Cat­a­lyst E2 debuted sev­er­al months ago and is in ser­vice with a num­ber of dif­fer­ent agen­cies across the coun­try, notably in Cal­i­for­nia. Since sales began, Pro­ter­ra has signed up six­ty-nine cus­tomers who have com­mit­ted to buy­ing near­ly six hun­dred Cat­a­lyst bus­es with no tailpipes.

King Coun­ty has a total of four bus­es cur­rent­ly in rev­enue service.

Pro­ter­ra’s web­site says the fleet it has deliv­ered to King Coun­ty has accu­mu­lat­ed 268,664 fleet miles dri­ven since Jan­u­ary 1st, 2016.

Over 75% of the com­po­nents for these Cat­a­lyst bus­es are sourced from North Amer­i­ca„ the com­pa­ny says, with parts and equip­ment com­ing from more than thir­ty-four of the fifty states — impres­sive in a day and age when so much man­u­fac­tur­ing has migrat­ed abroad.

The Cat­a­lyst sports a pur­pose-built com­pos­ite body with bat­tery packs posi­tioned under the floor of the bus, giv­ing it the abil­i­ty to get the equiv­a­lent of twen­ty-four miles to the gal­lon. (For the sake of com­par­i­son, a diesel-pow­ered bus like the kind com­mon­ly in use in our region can typ­i­cal­ly get four miles to the gal­lon, while a hybrid can get five. Pro­ter­ra’s bus­es are much more efficient.)

Although the Cat­a­lyst has a high­er upfront cost, its main­te­nance costs are dras­ti­cal­ly less than a tra­di­tion­al diesel bus. The Cat­a­lyst has 30% few­er parts and can offer sub­stan­tial oper­a­tional sav­ings to a tran­sit agency.

Cat­a­lyst bus­es are engi­neered to last at least twelve years and the bat­ter­ies rat­ed to last for at least six years pri­or to pos­si­bly need­ing replacement.

The Cat­a­lyst E2 offers four hun­dred and forty kilo­watt hours onboard, giv­ing it a range of about one hun­dred and forty miles in aver­age con­di­tions. It takes about four hours to charge the bat­ter­ies after they have been most­ly depleted.

Actu­al range, of course, varies based on weath­er, road con­di­tions, and the num­ber of pas­sen­gers on board. But a bus that can go over a hun­dred miles with­out need­ing a recharge is a bus that is ver­sa­tile enough to han­dle many routes.

The bus we’re trav­el­ing on is owned by Pro­ter­ra, which is fronting the costs of today’s jour­ney to Olympia as an in-kind con­tri­bu­tion to the Yes on I‑1631 coali­tion. Pro­ter­ra rep­re­sen­ta­tives say that their mis­sion is to pro­vide clean, reli­able, advanced mass trans­porta­tion at all using the lat­est technology.