Page 19 - Commercial Vehicle Engineer - December 2019

in road transport, primarily in the speci cation and operation of buses, is easy to nd.
Chinese growth
For instance, take the fast-growing UK customer list for the Yutong electric buses supplied by Pelican Bus & Coach, an operation born only seven years ago, initially to import BMC commercial
vehicles from Turkey. But when BMC went belly-up, Crump and his colleagues turned to Yutong in China and clinched a deal in the summer of 2013. The rst Yutong buses arrived in the UK a year later.
The grand total of Yutong vehicle sales
in the UK in 2014 was 21. But by the end
of last year the number of Yutong buses and coaches (mainly diesel-powered) in operation in the UK and Irish Republic had reached about 430.
Newport Transport in south Wales
was one of the rst bus operations to
take an interest in the all-electric (battery-powered) 12-metre Yutong single-decker. Following a demonstration, an order for 14 was placed for delivery
by April 2020.
Nine similar new Yutong electric
single-deckers are due to go into service with FirstGroup in Leeds, West Yorkshire in May 2020.
Yutong: growing e-bus customer list in UK includes FirstGroup in Leeds (left) and Newport Transport in south Wales (above)
ELECTRIC BUSES IN CHINA
BYD: top-selling e-bus manufacturer in Europe, with Stagecoach’s park-and-ride Guildford operation among the latest converts.
COMMERCIAL VEHICLE ENGINEER > DECEMBER 2019 19