A manufacturing company celebrated a milestone Wednesday when it built its 300th electric bus in Lancaster, Calif.

BYD, Build Your Dreams, joined with one of its first US bus-buying partners, the Antelope Valley Transit Authority – to mark the occasion. ATVA is closing in a landmark of its own – one million miles of zero-emission operations. AVTA expects to make that breakthrough in early May, officials said.

The 300th bus is a 35-foot BYD K9S model transit bus. The vehicle is one of three built for the Baton Rouge bus system, which will field test the battery electric bus for use in routes in Louisiana’s capital.

“We are very proud of this 300th American bus milestone. We are passionate about our mission to create a cleaner environment here in North America and across the globe,” said Stella Li, BYD President, at the ribbon-cutting event attended by city officials and BYD employees.

Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris applauded BYD’s commitment to creating hundreds of jobs in his city.

“BYD has continuously shown its dedication to our community and region at-large, since establishing its North American manufacturing facilities here in Lancaster,” Parris said. “Along the way, BYD has established itself as the gold standard in the battery electric bus transportation industry. In fact, our local Antelope Valley Transit Authority (AVTA) will very soon have a 100% all-electric bus fleet.”

AVTA was one of BYD’s first customers. In 2016, the AVTA board set a goal of becoming the nation’s first all-electric fleet and vowed to convert all of its aging diesel buses. AVTA will achieve that conversion milestone later this year,

“The Antelope Valley Transit Authority’s fleet of 75 currently includes about 30 electric buses, which will have completed a million miles of travel by the middle of next month,” said AVTA Chairman and City of Lancaster Vice Mayor Marvin Crist. “We expect AVTA’s entire fleet to be converted to electric buses as we reach our second million miles, and the savings will be even greater by then – nearly $500,000 in fuel costs saved.”

When BYD opened its Lancaster manufacturing plant in 2013, it had a handful of employees working on 10 buses in a 106,000-square-foot building that once housed a motorhome manufacturing facility.

In six years, BYD has grown to become the largest battery electric bus manufacturer in North America, with more than 750 employees. Since acquiring the facility, BYD has increased its manufacturing plant to over a half million square feet, with the capacity to produce as many as 1,500 buses a year.

Since delivery of its first U.S. battery-electric bus in 2014, BYD has provided buses to customers in 13 states and four Canadian provinces.