BYD Continues Push Into Global Markets, Announces New Electric Bus Factory In Ecuador

May 10th, 2017 by Kyle Field

BYD announced today that it has signed an agreement with the Government of Ecuador to build an electric bus factory in the South American country.

BYD shared that it will invest $60 million into the new facility where it will create about 300 jobs. The new factory will have the capacity to churn out 300 of its fully electric buses, like the BYD K9, each year.

BYD Senior Vice President Stella Li attended the official signing of the Memorandum of Understanding event and shared her perspective on the news:

“At BYD, we are excited to be working with the government of Ecuador as it seeks to improve the quality of life for its citizens – first through last month’s introduction of eco-friendly taxis and now as we look to create green jobs making vehicles that support a sustainable way of life.”

Ecuador is a great fit for BYD’s electric vehicles, as it already generates 95% of its electricity from zero-emission hydroelectric power plants, which means that each electric bus or car that hits the road in Ecuador represents a real, immediate reduction in emissions for the country. To this end, BYD also established an office in Ecuador in November of last year.

Much like Tesla, BYD produces electric vehicles, solar photovoltaic panels, and stationary energy storage … which it has been doing for years now. Its focus on fleet vehicles vs. consumer vehicles, utility-scale solar installations vs. residential rooftops, and utility-scale energy storage facilities vs. aesthetically pleasing wall units to be mounted in homes have kept it largely under the radar of the general public, but make no mistake — BYD is a big player in these markets today.

That’s not an aspiration, it is just a statement about how long BYD has been in business and the hard work it has done to date. It sold more plug-in vehicles last year than any other company and has been manufacturing batteries since 1995. It’s on this foundation that the impressive global expansion over the last few months has been built.

In South America specifically, BYD has been very active, having recently delivered an order of 30 fully electric BYD e5 taxis to the City of Loja in Ecuador in recent weeks. It also announced a massive expansion of its solar photovoltaic factory in Campinas, Brazil, that will manufacture double-glass solar PV panels, electric bus chassis, and finished electric buses for South American markets.

Zooming back to the global picture, BYD has made a similarly aggressive push into Europe, with a new electric bus assembly factory in France and a new electric bus factory in Hungary over the last few months. In the US, BYD has established a foothold in the lucrative Southern California EV market — with its North American headquarters in Los Angeles and the BYD Bus and Coach factory in Lancaster, California, where, in addition to electric bus production, BYD maintains a battery module assembly factory. Thanks to a recent expansion, that’s also where the production of its electric light-, medium-, and heavy-duty trucks takes place.

BYD’s plug-in vehicles are currently in use in more than 200 cities across 50 countries around the world.











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