From: Darrell Clarke
To: cityclerk
Subject: Presentation to Municipal Services Committee, today, Item #2 Date: Tuesday, July 8, 2025 3:15:47 PM
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MUNICIPAL SERVICES COMMITTEE, JULY 8, 2025
2. UPDATE ON PASADENA TRANSIT ZERO-EMISSION ROLLOUT PLAN I’m Darrell Clarke, here as a Pasadena homeowner and Sierra Club Angeles Chapter Transportation Chair. I know I’m late to this project, but I hope this is the right forum to speak up.
The future of buses and trucks is battery electric, not hydrogen, and I’ll briefly show why.
I attended the California Air Resources Board’s Zero-Emissions Showcase at Angel Stadium’s parking lot on June 18. https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/events/zero-emissions-showcase-ride-drive- anaheim-ca
It included a visit to Anaheim Regional Transit’s year-old solar-with-storage microgrid (which solves electricity demand-charge spikes) charging facility for their BYD fleet – here’s a photo:
I spoke with ENC (Eldorado): their new Axess EVO-BE has a usable range of 225 miles in California with a 692 kWh battery, in 32’, 35’, or 40’ low-floor buses. https://eldorado- ca.com/axess-evo-be/
Conversely, Pasadena’s decision was based on obsolete 2021 data in CALSTART’s 2022 study, which presumed only half that battery capacity in its Table 2-4, and therefore not sufficient range for full 1-for-1 bus replacement which the city wanted.
https://ww2.cityofpasadena.net/2023%20Agendas/Jan_30_23/AR%204%20Attachment%20A_ Pasadena%20ICT%20Report_Finalrev.pdf
Most Southern California transit agencies have chosen battery-electric, not hydrogen fuel cells, including L.A. Metro, L.A. DOT (DASH buses), Santa Monica Big Blue Bus, Long Beach Transit, Culver City Bus, and Anaheim Regional Transit. Pasadena projects tripling to about the same ridership as Culver City, 3.1 million annual trips. China, the world leader in battery technology, has deployed some 700,000 battery-electric buses.
A battery-electric vehicle is 70-80% efficient at converting electricity to motion. But a hydrogen fuel cell wastes at least 70% of that electricity to electrolyze water, compress the hydrogen, and run a fuel cell to power a motor, not to mention the diesel fuel to truck the hydrogen. https://cleantechnica.com/2025/03/11/the-hydrogen-bus-illusion-essen-mulheims- costly-reality/
And is that hydrogen even “green” from renewable electricity? Shutdown of the ARCHES California Hydrogen Hub’s federal funding means you’d probably be getting “gray” hydrogen made from natural gas, just emitting its waste CO2 someplace else, essentially no better than current gas-fueled buses. And the very small hydrogen molecule is prone to leaking, itself a secondary GHG.
Please don’t invest in an expensive, inefficient, polluting, dead-end technology.
Darrell Clarke