In response to China’s deteriorating air quality and ecological environment, Hangzhou’s Leadership has adopted zero-emissions public transportation, in the form of electric buses and taxis.

The order for 2,000 long-range, battery-electric transit buses and 1,000 long-range, pure electric cars was signed this week by the Mayor of Hangzhou, Hongming Zhang and is one of the world’s largest ever orders for an all-electric transport fleet.

‘There is simply no other company that manufactures and delivers fleets of electric cars and electric buses by the thousands’, said BYD Auto Europe’s managing director Isbrand Ho. ‘The R&D expertise, the manufacturing scale, component spend and hundreds of millions of passenger kilometres already travelled in our pure electric buses and taxis mean that BYD has a substantial lead over our competitors in this fast developing technology’, said Ho. ‘We plan to invest in facilities in Europe and also to work with suitably qualified bus industry partners here,’ he added.