BYD celebrates 300 electric buses produced at US plant

China's electric-car maker BYD on Wednesday celebrated the production of the 300th bus at its Lancaster, California, manufacturing plant, a milestone hailed by some officials as a successful example of US-China business collaboration and a great step toward reducing pollution.

The event also celebrated the Antelope Valley Transit Authority, BYD's neighbor and one of its first customers, which is expected to hit 1 million miles of zero-emission bus operations in early May.

"Three hundred buses is a milestone for BYD," said Patrick Duan, BYD's vice-president of operations.

"I remember about six years ago, when we arrived in Lancaster, BYD had about a dozen employees working on a few buses at a time. Today we have 750 employees working in a facility of over 550,000 square feet (167,000 square meters), and we are constructing as many as 80 buses at any given time. These are buses that will be delivered to businesses, institutions and communities throughout the US," he said.

The 300th bus is a 10.7-meter BYD K9S model transit bus. It's one of three built for the Capital Area Transit System in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, BYD said.

Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris said the milestone is a result of successful collaboration.

"What BYD and Lancaster have done is we got together and decided to solve a puzzle, how do we have buses that don't add to the climate disruption," he said. "When we first met with BYD, no one had one. ... America and China working together solved that problem."

The mayor said BYD saved Lancaster economically.

"We had 24 percent unemployment when BYD opened the doors. We are now down to a little under 4 percent. It's a huge difference," he said.

BYD is the largest manufacturing employer in Lancaster, a desert town located on the fringe of Los Angeles county.

BYD opened the Lancaster plant in 2013. The plant's last expansion, which was completed in 2017, increased its diverse workforce from 500 to more than 800 and added 25 percent in annual revenue for the City of Lancaster, the company said.

Chinese Deputy Consul General in Los Angeles Shi Yuanqiang congratulated BYD on its achievement, and said that California enjoys close economic and trade ties with China.

"Since the year 2000, California has attracted nearly $30 billion of Chinese investment," he said.

"It's foreseeable that with its economic and geographic advantages, the state of California, especially the Southern California region, will have great business potential with China in the coming years. Chinese companies will continue to play an important role in driving the local economy here," Shi added.

In 2018, the California Air Resources Board voted unanimously to require all new buses be carbon-free by 2029. Environmental advocates predict that the last buses emitting greenhouse gases will be phased out by 2040.

But some transit agencies, such as the Antelope Valley Transit Authority, have already implemented its own plan to phase out fossil fuel buses. In 2016, the authority set a goal of becoming the nation's first fully electric fleet by the end of 2018. As part of that decision, it awarded BYD a contract for 85 electric buses over the next five years.

BYD has already delivered 25 buses to the authority, the company said.

teresaliu@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily 04/05/2019 page2)