MONEY

Proterra seeks city bus business

Rudolph Bell
dbell@greenvillenews.com

Proterra has sold 50 of its battery-powered buses to transit agencies in 11 cities, but so far the bus system in its home city of Greenville isn’t a customer.

And the company’s new chief executive, Ryan Popple, says changing that is high on his priority list.

Proterra customers and investors who visit Proterra’s factory and headquarters along Interstate 85 sometimes ask whether the local bus system, Greenlink, uses its zero-emission buses, Popple said.

Four years after Proterra relocated to Greenville from Golden, Colorado, as a startup company, the answer remains no.

Popple told The Greenville News on Wednesday that he’d like to “approach that problem with a fresh set of eyes and make sure we do something together soon.”

He made the remarks in a telephone interview as Proterra prepared to announce another $40 million in funding from investors, bringing its total equity funding to $135 million.

Popple said Greenville could become a model city for Proterra’s zero-emissions technology.

Downtown “is a really phenomenal example of smart urban development,” he said. “We should have a clean, quiet, electric bus that services at least that Main Street area.”

Greenlink officials have long said they’d like to deploy Proterra buses but have never secured the money.

Proterra buses cost more than conventional ones that burn diesel, but the company argues they’re more cost-effective over the life of the vehicle when costs such as fuel and maintenance are taken into account.

Proterra’s price has plunged as it has ramped up manufacturing, from an initial $1.2 million to the $800,000 range, with the exact price depending on which configuration a customer chooses.

In addition, Proterra has said it would be willing to give Greenlink a discount in order to showcase its buses in the town where they’re made.

Greenlink recently joined with Greenville County in applying for $13.7 million in federal grant money, part of which would be used to buy three Proterra buses for operation on Laurens and Haywood roads.

Greenlink officials have also talked about using Proterra buses to provide transportation between downtown hotels and Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport, and along a proposed transportation corridor on a former freight railway between Pleasantburg Drive and the International Center for Automotive Research.

Mark Rickards, who runs Greenlink as transportation director for the city of Greenville, said the holdup has “always been about money. It always is.”

Still, he said, Greenlink is working on the issue, trying to secure a price and funding source, and needs to replenish its fleet with new buses.

“It’s gonna happen at some point,” Rickards said. “I just don’t know when. We have the need. They have the product. We’ve just got to match up.”

Trey Fouche, chairman of the Greenville Transit Authority, which operates Greenlink, said another issue is that GTA is locked in a dispute with Clemson Area Transit, the Clemson bus system, over federal funding.

The dispute broke out when Clemson was moved to a different federal classification and had to share federal funding with Greenlink for the first time.

Fouche said the face-off is so time-consuming that GTA hasn’t been able to spend much time exploring the purchase of Proterra buses or other projects such as new service to Fountain Inn or Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport.

Popple, in addition to being Proterra’s CEO, is a partner in Kleiner, Perkins, a California venture capital firm that is one of Proterra’s main investors.

Before joining Keiner Perkins, he was senior director of finance for Tesla Motors, the electric sports car company.

Popple recently moved to Greer with his wife and three young children.