Canada Approves BYD’s eBus

Originally published in the ECOreport.

The BYD electric transit bus in front of the BYD Motors Assembly Plant in Lancaster, CA. Courtesy BYD

Forget all the hassle in the United States, the BYD Electric Transit Bus has just earned Canadian Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (CMVSS) Certification and been placed on the “Vehicle Manufacturers Registry” with Transport Canada. According to their news release, this is supposed to include “several standards” that are “beyond the U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards.”

The 60% American-owned eBus company has had a rough experience south of the line so far. It lost a contract with Long Beach after city officials discovered BYD’s winning bid did not mention the percentage of its business that would come from “disadvantaged” (i.e. poor/minority) businesses per the federal government’s Disadvantage Business Enterprise Program. BYD claims had to pay the California Labor Commissioner $37,803 for (BYD’s description) not having enough categories on their cheque stubs allowing its employees to take a 20-minute coffee break rather than two 10-minute breaks.

BYD ebus (electric bus). Test vehicle. Photo taken 2013 in Bonn, Germany. Credit: Spielvogel, CC0 1.0″ on Wikipedia

Everything will hopefully be “made better” next week, when BYD holds a showcase of its Lancaster, CA plant. Mayor Rex Paris of Lancaster, county supervisor Michael D. Antonovich from Los Angeles, and a Berkshire Hathaway representative (Warren Buffet owns 6% of BYD) are among the dignitaries that will be attending.

Meanwhile, after a 10-month trial run between Gatineau, Québec, and Ottawa Ontario, the Société de transport de l’Outaouais (STO) and AVT — a consortium of Québec’s nine transit agencies — recently confirmed that BYD’s eBus achieves 155 miles of range and performs as advertised.

So, lets start seeing some of those eBuses on roads!

Canada Approves BYD’s eBus was originally published on CleanTechnica. To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 50,000 other subscribers: Google+ | Email | Facebook | RSS | Twitter.