Last week, Windsor Mayor Eddie Francis signed a letter of intent to purchase up to ten (10), BYD 40-foot electric buses for City transit services in 2012 – the first City in North America to launch long-range, all-electric buses. The agreement also opens talks to bring manufacturing of BYD buses to the Ontario region in the near future. Transit Windsor has the unique distinction of running in Canada as well as in Detroit, making this launch one that serves on both Canadian and United States’ roads.
Stella Li, President of BYD Motors and Senior Vice President of BYD Ltd stated, “BYD has been delighted to see Windsor’s leadership, especially that of Mayor Eddie Francis and his Transit and Enwin Utilities team members. They truly have an understanding of the responsibility of government to drive not only economic recovery of our cities and Nations, but to do so while not harming the environment.” The BYD Iron-Phosphate batteries used in these electric buses are the only rechargeable battery systems that contain no heavy metals, toxic electrolytes or use caustic materials in their production. This makes the BYD batteries the most environmentally friendly batteries available in the market. Additionally, BYD and Enwin are working towards having a master plan to repurpose the Windsor bus batteries into fixed Energy Storage Stations when the buses retire (in 12 to 15 years).
Mayor Eddie Francis stated, “One of our primary goals was to position Windsor among the first cities in North America to pioneer the efficient use of electric buses within its public transit authority and to establish Windsor as a hub for the development, manufacture and commercialization of energy products including electric buses.”
BYD is in the process of completing FMVSS, CMVSS, and other certification testing in North America this year with further plans for fleet sales and deliveries after the first Windsor bus deliveries. BYD’s all-electric vehicles in commercial fleets have traveled over 10 million miles over the last two years (as of Q1-2012), showing that their bus technology is quite mature. BYD has delivered over 300 all-electric buses worldwide and has orders for over 1300 more in 2012, making it the largest electric bus manufacturer in the world.