BYD continues to sprint towards electrifying every vehicle category in the world with news today that it is adding an electric forklift production facility in the Southern California city of Rancho Dominguez. The new 50,000 square foot facility will also include supporting offices, warehousing, and demonstration space to show potential customers what these new lithium iron phosphate-powered vehicles are capable of.
New energy company BYD is taking another step into the lucrative North American bus market with the announcement of a new bus plant in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada. The new 45,000-square-foot facility represents another step forward into the electrified future of North America.
The Antelope Valley Transit Authority is peeling the plastic off of the first three high-speed wireless bus chargers for its network of buses this week. The three new inductive chargers will operate at 250 kW speeds that will allow its fleet of fully electric BYD buses roaming around their service area in Southern California to charge up at ridiculously fast speeds, without wires
The political bias against renewable energy shows signs of wilting at the state and municipal levels, despite President Trump’s pro-coal rhetoric.
Lancaster, California, produces more solar power per capita than any other city in the state. Devastated by the recession of 2009, when unemployment rose to 17%, the city has made its commitment to solar the basis of its economic rebirth. Today it is home to the BYD truck and bus factory, which just finished an expansion that tripled its original size.
BYD held the Grand Opening of Phase 3 of its Lancaster Bus and Coach Factory expansion on October 6th, 2017, with numerous company officials, dignitaries, and employees on hand to celebrate. CleanTechnica joined in the fun as well.
We broke the news last April of BYD becoming the top-selling plug-in vehicle brand in the world by volume (which it still is) and subsequently moving into the electric truck category. Now, the company is working to expand its Lancaster, California, plant in support of increasing demand for electrified BYD trucks.
Lancaster, California, is located northeast of Los Angeles near Edwards Air Force Base. It lies at the edge of the Mojave Desert, where abundant sunshine is the order of the day. The city has been a leader in clean, renewable energy since 2011 and has been requiring builders to install solar panels on all new homes since 2014. Its policies have served as a model for other California communities, including Sebastopol, Santa Monica, and San Francisco. Now, the city seeks to raise the bar by requiring each new home to have a rooftop solar system large enough to meet its full energy needs.
The University of California Irvine announced that it is acquiring 20 electric buses from BYD for a cool $15 million to electrify its campus shuttle service, the Anteater Express.
Cities are where most of the world’s people live, and they can make the move toward cleantech and away from burning up the planet go much, much — much — faster. In fact, some policies could trump critical levers like ZEV mandates, and if adopted broadly, make the ZEV transition happen faster than most of us think possible.
