Houston, Texas –BYD Motors kicked off the 2014 American Public Transportation Association (APTA) Expo in Houston this week with a the unveiling of an electric articulated bus named “The Lancaster” after the city in California where it was designed and manufactured.
Lancaster Vice Mayor Marvin Crist proclaimed, "BYD Motors is an American manufacturing company residing in an industrial zone in the city of Lancaster – they have now hired over 60 Americans to build clean-tech Electric Buses and Energy Modules out of Lancaster, California."
The Lancaster eBus, a 60ft, articulated battery-electric bus, can drive 170 miles with a passenger load of up to 120 passengers, was in development for almost two years.
"BYD's mission is to create safer and more environmentally-friendly battery technologies. This has resulted in the BYD Iron-Phosphate Battery, a fire-safe, completely recyclable, and incredibly long-cycle technology – the foundation of BYD's Electric buses. These buses run entirely off battery power lasting up to 24 hours on a single charge, with single off-peak charging time of two hours to four hours," said BYD Motors Fleet Sales Vice President, Brendan Riley. “No additional generation capacity is needed to be built to charge our buses at night since the grid is only 40% utilized.”
Also on display at the BYD exhibit was a 40ft, battery-electric transit bus from Antelope Valley Transit Authority. AVTA Board Chairman Norm Hickling said the bus “drove over 1,500 zero-emission miles from Los Angeles all the way to Houston for the Expo under its own power.”
AVTA tested BYD buses in the hottest part of the Lancaster summer in August with full air-conditioning running and with 5,250 pounds of sand bags to simulate a full passenger load. He stated, “We drove nearly 100 miles more than BYD advertises -- up to 250 miles per bus charge and we covered almost 750 miles in 24 hours.”
He added that the 1,500 mile journey to Texas was completed for “$200 in electricity--the lowest cost trip to the show of all buses.”
Source: BYD