BYD to Build Electric Bus Factory in California
24 December 2012
www.chinabuses.org: China's BYD has announced that it is preparing to build a factory in California. When it is up and runing, the plant will be BYD's first overseas production facility.
According to Li Ke, the company's senior vice-president, the new factory will exclusively be used to assemble electric K9 buses for the United States market. Although the K9 costs anywhere between $550,000 and $600,000, BYD says that it has already received several orders from clients such as Stanford University, the Los Angeles International Airport and Apple.
Electric K9 buses
The plant's exact location will be revealed in March or April of next year and production is slated to begin roughly twelve months later. The Chinese firm hopes to assemble between 50 and 100 buses in 2014 and gradually reach a cruising speed of around 500 vehicles a year.
Most of the parts that will make up the California-built K9 bus will be imported directly from China. The factory will recruit a majority of its employees locally, however.
The K9 bus is equipped with iron-phosphate batteries that were developed in-house by BYD. Linked to four in-wheel motors, they provide a maximum range of roughly 186 miles under what BYD calls ideal driving conditions and take six hours to fully recharge on a standard outlet.
Source : leftlanenews
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