You are definitely living under a rock if you haven’t heard that many cities in China are suffering from record-breaking pollution levels. If you’re a hardcore regular of CleanTechnica, you also know that electric buses have been selling like hotcakes in China. The EV-loving city Shenzhen is taking it one step further. In Shenzhen, electric buses will make up all public bus transportation by the end of this year, primarily BYD electric buses.

Shenzhen Bus Fleet to Go Electric by End of 2017

There’s no denying that switching an entire public transportation bus fleet to electricity can drastically curb pollutants and respiratory complications. The city of Shenzhen sees the light, coming to the conclusion that human lives matter more than foreign oil company profits.

One more thing to note: Shenzhen has been working toward this goal for a while. It already has 14,000 electric buses on the street, with only has a few hundred diesel-powered buses left to replace. They will be decommissioned over the last two months of the year. BYD is in charge of providing 80% of the electric buses for the city. It is also heavily vested in electric vehicles (EV), leads the world-leading Chinese EV market, and has introduced its electric bus all over the world, including in Long Beach, California, where we were privileged enough to take its maiden ride.

BYD started the Shenzhen pilot test in 2011. In six years, the giant city (population 11.9 million) managed to implement a complete switch. So, what is taking us so long in the West? Article by Nicolas Zart. Read more on cleantechnica.com