Selling Like Hot Cakes, Electric Bus Production In India To Be More Than Doubled By Chinese Auto Major BYD

India is gradually becoming the hub of electric buses. Apart from spotting such environmentally-friendly vehicles on the roads, a look at their production numbers seems to reiterate this fact. For both its domestic and overseas markets, Chinese auto major BYD operating in India now aims to join this trend.

The company is reportedly eyeing to increase its production capacity for electric buses, which currently stands at 2,000 to 5,000 annually. BYD will be amping up the manufacturing capacity in its two factories in the country for this.

The plan was confirmed by Ketsu Zhang, executive director, BYD India as per a recent report. The planned increase in production would also see BYD¡¯s manufacturing partner in India - Olectra making efforts towards the target.

As of now, BYD has sold 200 battery-electric buses in India which run commercially in places including New Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chandigarh among others. These buses are divided across two makes - a 9-meter-long BYD K7 and a 12 meter K9, both produced locally in the country. As per the figures provided by the company, both the e-buses are able to run up to 250 km on a single charge.

Another vehicle in the lineup

In addition to increasing the production of electric buses in India, BYD also aims to introduce a new electric vehicle in its lineup. The vehicle will reportedly be an electric multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) named T3 and will be open for bookings soon as per Zhang.

Even before that, the company has already got orders for 200 units of the T3 and now aims at a sales target of 10,000 units within the next couple of years. In addition, BYD will be focusing on selling material handling equipment, energy storage system as well as its straddle monorail system SkyRail and rubber-tyred tram-train system SkyShuttle in the country as per Zhang.

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