Electric school buses at the Lion Electric assembly plant in Saint-Jerome, Que., in August, 2023.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
The Quebec government has ordered school buses made by beleaguered Lion Electric Co. LEV-T off the roads for emergency inspection, leaving thousands of students in the province without transportation Friday and complicating the company’s efforts to revive its business.
The provincial government issued the directive late Thursday evening, saying an unspecified “defect” could be the cause of a Lion bus catching fire in Montreal earlier this week. Six children and a driver were inside the vehicle at the time, but no one was injured.
The decision was made to pull 1,200 Lion buses in the province out of service as a “preventative measure,” Quebec Education Minister Sonia LeBel and Transport Minister Jonatan Julien said in a joint statement. School bus operators will take the weekend to inspect the buses with a view to restarting service as quickly as possible, the ministers said.
Some English school boards and French school service centres cancelled service on certain bus routes in response while others cancelled the day’s classes entirely. The English Montreal School Board was forced to suspend service on more than 70 routes usually served by Lion electric buses, while the Centre de services scolaire de Laval suspended about 40 routes.
Images of Tuesday’s bus blaze quickly made the rounds on social media. The cause of the fire was not immediately known but the vehicle’s electric battery systems were not involved, fire department spokesman Guy Lapointe said.
In a statement sent to The Globe and Mail, Lion acknowledged the government’s decision and said it’s mindful of the impact it may have on families and the school network, adding it shared inspection procedures with bus operators earlier this week. “We are working closely with them and Transport Canada to confirm the safety of Lion vehicles and to ensure the full and prompt resumption of school transportation services.”
Lion Electric set to be acquired by consortium of Quebec investors
Lion, which is based in Saint-Jérôme, Que., went public in 2021 with a roar and a bet that it could transform the transportation industry with innovative designs for zero-emission buses. But it eventually found itself unable to pay debts and scrambled to find fresh cash to fund its ambitious strategy. It filed for bankruptcy protection in December, 2024.
The Quebec government invested tens of millions of dollars in Lion but shut the taps this past spring. A new group of owners, including entrepreneurs Pierre Wilkie and Luc Sabbatini, has agreed to provide fresh capital, bolstered by the renewal of a provincial government subsidy program that offers incentives to buyers of electric buses.
They face an uphill climb.
Lion will drop its truck-making business and adopt a streamlined business plan centred on electric school buses made at a factory in Saint-Jérôme. But much of its future will hinge on its ability to re-establish its reputation and generate enough sales to build its business back up.
The company has been hammered by criticism in the United States after its bankruptcy monitor sent a letter in July to American customers telling them their warranties and purchase orders have been voided. To what extent the company intends to provide future support to clients outside Quebec remains to be seen.
“There’s a way forward but they’re in treacherous waters right now” as they try to relaunch, said Yan Cimon, a professor of strategy at the Université Laval Faculty of Business Administration. “It’s going to be more of a winding road than they thought.”
Much depends on the cause of the fire and how the issue is addressed, both from a manufacturing and public relations perspective, Mr. Cimon said. The company needs to come forward and be as transparent as it can in explaining the situation, he said.
This is not the first time a Lion bus has gone up in flames. Last November, a bus caught fire in Ascot Corner, in Quebec’s Eastern Townships region. A second bus caught fire in Huntsville, Ont., in January. Nobody was injured in either case, and the batteries were not involved.
With a report from The Canadian Press