CHINA’S battery and electric vehicle maker BYD announced yesterday that it will provide the Philippines 10 electric buses for the first time ever, which are expected to ply Manila’s roads in July.
Two of the 10 electric buses have been delivered while eight more are expected to be delivered next month.
Liu Xueliang, vice general manager of the BYD sales, told Xinhua that BYD and Columbian Motors Corp. (CMC), one of the Philippines’ largest bus manufacturers, signed the agreement in October 2017 to purchase the 10 e-buses from BYD.
Arsenio Yap, CMC president, said the 10 electric buses will be the first in the Philippines.
Yap said there are about 9,000 buses plying Manila’s roads every single day. “With the all-electric buses, we will make the transportation in Metro Manila more environmentally-friendly, more convenient, healthier and safer,” Yap said.
The 80-passenger buses can cover up to a 250-km trip on a single charge.
Manila is the capital and largest city in the Philippines with more than 12 million people.
According to studies, the traffic congestion in Metro Manila is getting worse and is costing 3.5 billion pesos (US$70 million) in lost opportunities every day, highlighting the need for new and modern infrastructure to ease the congestion.
The jeepneys remain the main transport for millions of people in Metro Manila.
However, old and rickety jeepneys are being blamed for polluting the air and causing traffic jams.
The Philippine Government vowed to push through with its plan to ban jeepneys that are older than 10 years from the streets and replace the diesel-fuelled passenger cars with the electric jeepneys.
Liu said BYD has rich experiences in manufacturing electric vehicles and hopes to contribute to the Philippine government’s efforts to modernize the jeepneys.
Also yesterday, BYD inked a deal with the local government of Bataan province to build a monorail transit system in the city northwest of Manila.
Earlier this month BYD announced it will supply Los Angeles International Airport with 20 all-electric buses for airfield passenger transportation, which make up the largest airport fleet of its kind in the United States, and will be produced at the BYD Lancaster plant in Southern California.
In September 2016, BYD launched Europe’s largest fleet of all electric buses built in Britain by a partnership with the British bus building company Alexander Dennis Ltd. The 51 12-meter single deckers in London provide service to roughly 7 million passengers every year, according to Transport for London.
(Xinhua)