E-bus demand surges outside China

The rest of the world looks likely to take up demand for electric buses following the collapse of that market in China two years ago after a drop in its government’s financial support.

An IDTechEx report Electric Buses 2019-2029 has doubts about China’s plans for full electrification of its bus fleet in 2027 and sees little happening about the one million largely unauthorised buses doing school runs.

The report explains where the action is now taking place.

“Until recently, it was uncertain whether the rest of the world would take up the slack of at least 20,000 pure electric buses yearly because even the RATP commitment in Paris of 800 is not of the right magnitude given that the Chinese used to place orders of up to 2000 at a time. The biggest city in Europe, London, is way below the Paris figure,” IDTechEx chief executive officer Raghu Das says.

As many as 50 countries are doing something.

“For example, in Wellington, New Zealand, 10 electric double-decker buses were rolled out last July, with a goal of having 32 running by 2021.

“Operator EBuzz in the Netherlands has ordered 159 electric buses. Solaris of Poland supplied over 100 locally then won a tender for 90 electric buses for the German capital Berlin.

“Brussels Airport has ordered 30 but that is dwarfed by Vietnam. A new non-profit bus service coming to Vietnam next year will introduce at least 3000 new electric buses to Vietnamese roads.”

Das says the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) plans to move its entire 2472 buses to zero-emission models by 2030.

“This is the second-largest bus fleet in North America after New York with similar long-term ambitions.”

Expect London, Los Angeles and New York to be heavy purchasers in five to 10 years, the report suggests.

“For all that, it is in India that the missing 20,000 or more electric buses yearly are likely to be ordered if electric bus demand is to recover globally,” Das says.

“India has announced energetic moves to replace 150,000 diesel buses and it will add more in order to cope with chronic air pollution. Indeed, India already has more buses than anywhere else. There are around 1.6 million registered buses in India, out of which only 170,000 are operated by public bus operators.”
The State of Kerala’s EV policy envisages introducing one million EVs by 2022, with a pilot fleet of 3000 pure electric buses planned. Andhra Pradesh has recently announced it will deploy 350 electric buses in five cities.

BYD, number two in electric buses worldwide and number one in the booming electric car market in China, says it will sell 40,000 pure electric buses world-wide in the year 2021.

Visit Electric Vehicles 2020-2030 for more information.