Los Angeles Doesn’t Have Enough Fire Trucks Thanks To Private Equity 

Los Angeles has been beset by fires this year, and it seems like every fire department around has done everything it can to help. One department, though, simply doesn’t have enough trucks that are in good enough shape to use: The Los Angeles Fire Department. Why are its trucks so broken? Well, as with most evils in this world, it’s private equity’s fault. Suggested ReadingHyundai Unveils Adorable Electric Rickshaw Concepts That Lift Up To Navigate Flooded RoadsTrump Gutted FAA Days Before Fatal Air CollisionPatrick Stewart Narrating 1990s Pontiac Commercials Is A Nostalgic Fever DreamSuggested ReadingHyundai Unveils Adorable Electric Rickshaw Concepts That Lift Up To Navigate Flooded RoadsTrump Gutted FAA Days Before Fatal Air CollisionPatrick Stewart Narrating 1990s Pontiac Commercials Is A Nostalgic Fever DreamThe Los Angeles Fire Department has trucks, to be sure, but many of those trucks are sitting around awaiting desperately-needed repairs. Those repairs require parts, and parts have to come from manufacturers — manufacturers increasingly wrapped up in the U.S. fire engine monolith that is the REV Group, a conglomerate assembled by private equity firm American Industrial Partners. New reporting from antitrust attorney Basel Musharbash, for Matt Stoller’s Substack outlet BIG, shows just how badly that consolidation has hurt fire departments across the States:Then, however, AIP bought multiple fire-truck manufacturers and rolled them up into conglomerate called the REV Group. Although AIP initially made a show of allowing these manufacturers and their distributors to continue operating independently, under the surface it quickly moved to operate them as a single firm, like a food conglomerate selling a bunch of different brands that all appear to be different companies. As one industry executive has observed, “There are now times when all vendors at a bid table, each with a ‘different’ product, are all owned and managed by the same parent company. How is that competitive for the purchaser?” The answer, of course, is that it isn’t. And you don’t need to take my word for it. REV Fire Group Vice President of Sales Mike Virnig made it clear in 2020: “What I won’t tolerate is negative selling,” he said. “I won’t tolerate it with our competitors, and I won’t tolerate it within the group. If I even get a hint or see anything like a dealer taking a shot at another dealer, we step in and say, ‘Stop it.’”…Even when fire departments can put together these large sums of money for new trucks, they can’t seem to get the dang things because of steep delays in production. Since 2019, “[T]he lead times for delivery from [the] date the order is placed [for a new a fire truck] to final inspection has gone from 10-12 months to greater than 2 years in many cases and in some cases approaching 3 years.” The Seattle Fire Department says it faces even longer wait times, with ladder trucks orders taking 54 months —