A spokeswoman for Foothill Transit initially told the Free Beacon that the bus caught fire while charging but said after publication that the fire wasn't a battery-related incident. The details of the January 9, 2020, California Proterra bus fire remain murky. Her stock holdings in the company, worth millions of dollars, were the subject of a Free Beacon report in April. Biden energy secretary Jennifer Granholm is a former Proterra board member. The Biden administration has said it plans to support the company through its trillion-dollar infrastructure package, and both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have participated in public events showcasing Proterra buses. The company's stock value has plummeted over 40 percent in the past month as Proterra's failures have garnered national headlines. "There has never been a fire on a customer bus related to our proprietary battery technology or powertrain," Proterra wrote in its statement. The report followed an NPR investigation into Philadelphia's Proterra buses, which have been taken off the road due to performance issues. The Free Beacon reported on Friday that Foothill Transit, a southern California transit agency, is considering doing away with several of its Proterra buses due to mechanical issues, including a January 2020 bus fire. Proterra said that reports about its bus failures have been "twisted into an indictment of battery-electric technology," that the problems are limited to its "first-generation buses," and that its battery technology has never directly caused a fire. It is unclear whether Proterra's reference to "partisan news blogs" refers to the taxpayer-funded NPR or the Free Beacon. A Proterra spokesman said Connolly was hired to "address some recent false and defamatory publications about the company." Proterra also published a statement Monday night that sought to set the "record straight about mischaracterizations about our Company in recent partisan news blogs that are opposed to the widespread adoption of zero-emission vehicles." Proterra, the electric bus company linked to several Biden administration officials and top Democrats, has retained the services of high-profile attorney Erik Connolly, the company said. A slump in stock price and reports about Proterra's costly electric buses underperforming across the country have sent the Biden administration's favorite electric battery company into damage-control mode, retaining a top-flight defamation lawyer and inveighing against "partisan blogs" like the Washington Free Beacon and the taxpayer-funded NPR.
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