China 100% Electric Bus Sales Grew To ~115,700 In 2016

Our friend Jose Pontes, a bi-monthly CleanTechnica contributor, recently posted an article detailing electric bus sales in China during 2016 over at the EV Sales blog. The figures allow those of us living elsewhere in the world to get more than a bit envious about China’s progress (those of us who don’t like breathing the exhaust from diesel buses, that is).

Growth during 2016 continued to be quite strong, going on the figures provided by Jose, with some 115,700 electric buses sold in China during the year. This figure represents a roughly 20% market share for the modality in the country. We combined the new figures with previous China electric bus sales figures Jose rounded up in order to create the following chart (a static, downloadable version is above).

→ Related: China Electric Car Sales Demolish US & European Electric Car Sales

The top manufacturer for the market segment in 2016 was Yutong, with 21,428 units moved; followed by BYD, with 14,903 units. In third was Nanjing, with 7,921 units sold in 2016 in China; in fourth was Zuhai (~6,000 units sold); and in fifth was Hunan (3,410 units sold).

The EV Sales blog provides more:

“Ending a series of articles on China, I left the juiciest of them to the end, Electric Buses. In the end of 2015, China had 170,000 of the 173,000 e-buses circulating in the world. That’s right, 98% of them were zooming in The Big Red Giant, which I think says it all about the role of that country on the change happening towards eMobility.

“But, what about in 2016? Just focusing on all-electric buses, sales grew to 115,700 units in 2016, which represents some 20% market share, with Yutong still in the lead, followed by BYD and Nanjing, with the first growing 36% YoY and the second more than 50%.”

Impressive numbers — no doubt helped along significantly by the very friendly regulatory environment in the country (with regard to electric buses), and foresight on several levels.

“With this kind of growth and market share, it is expected that China goes all-electric in this category in less than 10 years, maybe five, so it is no wonder that large cities like Shenzen are already envisioning an all-electric 15,000 fleet of buses … in 2017.”

For more on the topic, see: “Electric Bus Sales Exploding In China (2010–2015).”