Ever been stuck in a green traffic jam? It’s an odd experience. Naturally it’s clean, but it’s also eerily quiet. And that’s not a bad thing.
Shenzhen, the home of electric bus maker BYD, has plenty of BYD electric cars running around it, thanks to employee discounts. And, as we discovered, they are pretty good cars by anyone’s standards.
But there is a serious point. Like Beijing, Shenzhen’s air pollution was very bad. The city’s action was to replace its entire 5,698-strong bus fleet with pure electrics. The last diesel bus was withdrawn two months ago.
Yes, it was a massive undertaking. And yes, there’s a large upfront capital cost in vehicles and infrastructure, although the latter is a one-off. Next on the agenda are taxis. All will be electric by 2020.
When we visited it was hot and humid, but it felt like the pollution was less than in central London. One typhoon later, and the dusty pollution had been washed away and the air was clearer.
Shenzhen’s politicians argue that while Euro 6 buses are very clean, their long duty hours (17 a day – similar to London) mean that they emit proportionally more particulates than the larger number of cars do, which spend most of the day parked up.
Therefore, to clean up the air, fleet renewal was the fastest and most cost-effective measure. In the UK grants are forthcoming, but much more will be needed to have the dramatic impact that Shenzhen has witnessed.
