BYD Charges Into Norway — 42 Articulated Electric Buses Ordered For Oslo
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BYD is making more headway in the Nordics with 2 large bus orders in Norway for 42 more of its articulated electric buses for the capital city of Oslo.
Norwegian transit operator Nobina placed the two orders for new BYD electric buses. The new deals are for a total of 42 BYD 18 meter articulated buses that will complement the two pilot buses that started operations in the capital in December of last year.
The orders also highlight a trend we are seeing here at CleanTechnica where companies, fleet managers, cites, states, and countries are increasingly satisfied with cleantech pilots and looking to scale up rapidly in the coming months and years.
The 42 new buses will all come equipped with rooftop pantograph charging that allows the vehicles to pull up under a charging station — for example, at a bus stop or bus depot — and receive a charge without having to manually plug a charger in at all. Pantographs all but automate the charging process while maintaining the high efficiencies of conductive charging.
In a transition that has me excited, the new electric buses will replace the current fleet of diesel buses, which is a straight-up win for clean air, human health, and renewables over fossil fuels. Norway sits at 98% renewable electricity generation today, thanks to favorable geography that has made hydroelectric energy storage and electricity generation a no-brainer for the Nordic country.
The new injection of electric buses complement the growing fleet of privately owned electric vehicles in the country. Norway is the undisputed leader in electric vehicle adoption, with plug-in vehicles representing 39.2% of new car sales in 2017. The steep increase in electric vehicle adoption is the result of decades of planning and policy work that have conspired to make Norway the ideal country to own an electric vehicle.
“Over the next ten years Oslo is planning to run a zero emission public transport system and we, together with BYD, are making a big contribution to make this plan come true,” said Jan Volsdal, managing director of Nobina. “We have good experiences with the two BYD [articulated buses] that have been running in Oslo for half a year including the challenging winter months and we have confidence that the new fleet’s performance will meet our expectations.
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