Scottish bus and coach builder ADL (Alexander Dennis Limited) – together with its electric partner BYD – has delivered its thousandth zero-emission bus. It is a battery-electric double-decker of the type “Enviro 400 EV”, which has gone to Stagecoach in Aberdeen. Funds for the purchase of the bus were provided by the Scottish Government as part of its “Ultra-low emission bus scheme”.
The partnership between Alexander Dennis (not least the world’s largest manufacturer of double-deckers today) and the Chinese company BYD as one of the world’s leading manufacturers of batteries for electric mobility and their management started in 2015. At that time, they jointly showed the world’s first battery-electric double-decker at the “Busworld” trade fair in Kortrijk, Belgium, in October; the vehicle went into service in London after the trade fair.
While it took ADL and BYD five years, i.e. until 2020, to deliver the 500th electric bus, it took just over another year for the next 500. This clearly shows that the electric bus is now becoming more and more established on the market. Which it undoubtedly wouldn’t do if it didn’t work perfectly.
The e-bus now delivered is the last of an order of 22 double-deckers of this type for Aberdeen. But Stagecoach has already placed a new order for a further 13 vehicles of this type.
At the handover, Scotland’s Transport Minister Richard Lochhead said:“Alongside free travel for under-22s and over half a billion pounds in long term funding for bus priority infrastructure, we’re putting buses at the heart of Scotland’s just transition to net-zero by helping people choose to travel more sustainably. We can only achieve that transition by working together.”
01.06.2022
