Asia Pacific dominated the global sales of electric buses in 2013 followed by North America.
China had the largest population of electric buses in 2013, the government stressing on clean transport with large investments in the development of electric and hybrid forms of vehicles in the country.
On the other hand, Israel has taken several initiatives to develop its electric vehicles infrastructure such as issuing mandatory requirements like conductive connection to the electric-vehicle general requirement, alternating current charging station, safety requirements and energy consumption requirements.
South Korea has introduced popular peanut buses which transfer people from subway stations in downtown to the North Seoul Tower. A European Union directive mandates the purchase of electric buses for the public transport services.
In some Asian countries such as India, the emission guidelines on public transport are not much stricter, promoting diesel vehicles in the country.
The weak power infrastructure of Asian countries is creating hurdles for electric bus growth.
A government, more concerned about pollution, may pave some ways for developing electricity-run public transportation in future for Asian sub- continent.
However, the governments in developed countries are expanding their electric bus fleet in public transport infrastructure.
The operating cost of an electric bus in New York was between USD 0.2 cents-0.3 cents per mile in 2014.
The U.S. department of transportation has announced the investment of USD 24.9 million to increase the number of zero-emission buses across America.
Electric buses can be divided into two categories namely non-autonomous electric buses and autonomous electric buses.
The non-autonomous electric buses can be further categorized as trolleybus, gap bus and online electric cable. The autonomous electric buses can be categorized under battery electric bus and gyro bus.
The non-autonomous electric buses are powered by overhead electric wires, whereas the autonomous electric buses run on rechargeable batteries.
A trend seen is that, the autonomous buses are replacing the non-autonomous buses. The common batteries used in electric buses include lithium-ion and iron-phosphate.
The key companies operating in the global electric bus market include BYD Motors, Proterra, Volvo, Zhongtong Bus & Holding, Yutong, Wuzhoulong, Foton, Golden Dragon and Kinglong.
Sabeena Wahid
editor@greentechlead.com