China rides the electric bus

Thanks to urbanisation, the electric bus is one of the most in-demand modes of public transport in China.

There are expected to be 1.9 million fully electric buses in operation throughout the world by 2030, with about 95 per cent of those to be running on Chinese roads.

Cities worldwide are investing in emission-free public transport, with growth in e-commerce cited to be the driving force behind low-emission solutions, such as company-specific electric commercial vehicles.

In the past decade, China has made remarkable progress in the promotion of New Energy Buses (NEB). A number of cities there, such as Shenzhen, Tianjin, and Zhengzhou, have achieve 100 per cent of bus fleet electrification.

According to the Ministry of Transport of the People’s Republic of China, by the end of 2020 there were around 466,000 NEBs in the country, of which 378,700 buses were battery electric buses, accounting for 66 per cent and 53.8 per cent of the total amount of buses, respectively.

As part of China’s carbon neutrality goals, the country is targeting 72 per cent of its urban public buses to be electric by 2025.