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New York’s public transit system is unlikely to meet a goal to convert its fleet of buses to electric vehicles by a 2040 deadline, according to a new audit by the state’s fiscal watchdog.
The report, released last week by Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, said the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s four-stage plan calling for a one-for-one replacement of its entire fleet of 5,800 buses with zero-emission buses has been stymied by bureaucratic missteps, rising costs for e-vehicles, and reliability issues.
"The MTA has set an ambitious goal to transform the nation's largest bus fleet to 100 percent zero-emission," DiNapoli said. “Unfortunately, this audit identified multiple challenges that have put its 2040 target in jeopardy.”
Auditors said the MTA received its first 15 new electric buses in 2019, followed by 60 more in 2024-2025. It was supposed to receive 485 of the next 500 buses by the end of Stage 1 in 2024, but auditors found that only one bus had been delivered by June 2025. The MTA subsequently reduced its Stage 2 order from 1,000 buses to 500, the report said.
The investigation determined that the MTA's progress has been hampered by several factors, including its reliance on a single manufacturer with limited capacity, which has led to backlogs. The cost of an electric bus also increased from about $1.4 to $1.8 million by 2024, the report noted, about 60% more than comparable-sized diesel buses. The MTA estimates fully replacing its fleet would cost $11.9 billion, DiNapoli said.
Meanwhile, zero-emission buses the MTA purchased during earlier pilot programs were “prone to breakdowns and reliability issues” that took them out of service, DiNapoli’s report said. Because e-buses must be at least 70% charged to be deployed and return to the depot when they reach 30%, they were generally assigned to shorter routes and remained in service for less than 60% of the time MTA had planned, according to the report.
DiNapoli said the transit agency’s officials “generally agreed” with his office’s recommendations to improve transition tracking, strengthen contingency planning, and refine procurement targets, and said it is “encouraging that the MTA has announced steps to address these issues."
The comptroller’s audit is the latest blow to the state’s clean energy goals, some of which have been scaled back by Gov. Kathy Hochul amid public backlash over rising energy costs in an election year and a lack of support for green projects from the Trump administration.
New York passed a law in 2022 mandating that all new school buses be electric starting in 2027, with all buses on the road meeting this standard by 2035. The move was aimed at helping the state meet its climate reduction goals.
But lawmakers added a provision to the state budget earlier this year, postponing the requirement to purchase new zero-emission vehicles until 2032 and the full conversion of the state’s busing fleet until 2040, aimed at providing some breathing room for school districts struggling to afford the cost of the mandate.
But DiNapoli’s report said even with the extension of time to comply with the e-bus mandate, the state is unlikely to meet those goals, suggesting that they be adjusted.
A 2025 report by the Empire Center for Public Policy estimated that converting buses for the state’s 370 school districts to e-vehicles would cost taxpayers more than $9 billion over the next 10 years.
The report said the state also didn’t budget for “grid-related costs” when it set the mandate, leaving cash-strapped school districts on the hook for "tens of millions of dollars" for infrastructure upgrades to accommodate the new e-bus fleets.
The average cost of an e-bus is $400,000, compared with traditional gas-powered buses at around $130,000, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.