Chinese companies such as Zhengzhou Yutong Bus and Anhui Ankai Automobile
China, whose vehicles serve an urban market two times as big as the entire
population of the United States, are set to lead the world in making public
buses fit for a health-conscious world, backed by a government drive to clean
up China's vast and growing cities.
The government in Beijing is determined to resolve the competing demands of a
growing urban population and ever-mounting air pollution in China, already the
world's biggest maker of conventional buses.
China's overall goal is to create a generation of environmentally friendly
cities, exemplified by the "Better City, Better Life" slogan for the Shanghai
World Expo in 2010. The country is at the forefront of a change that will see
megacities around the world
develop clean urban transit systems to reduce pollution, offering people
low-emission buses for their daily commute rather than gasoline-powered cars.
As one of the fastest urbanizing countries in the world, China is by far the
largest market for metro buses, seeking to meet the needs of an urban
population already twice the population of the United States although so far
only 45% of Chinese people live in cities. By 2030, China's urban population is
expected to reach close to 1 billion.
Public buses account for 70% of all forms of public transit, with the remaining
30% subways, light-rail and taxis. By next year, China will need to have
630,000 public buses on the road to meet the demand for an estimate 630 million
urban residents. In 2007, the country's 347,000 public buses carried 554
million passengers, compared with only 65 million public-bus passengers in
North America.
That demand is matched by production of buses, at which China leads all rivals.
Zhengzhou Yutong Bus is one of the world's top producers of transit buses,
after only Daimler Chrysler, South Korea's Hyundai, India's Tata, Fiat of
Italy, and Brazil-based Marco Polo.
By next year, China will likely account for one-third of global autobuses sales
and is expected to become the dominant global exporter.
However, in the wake of rapid urbanization, China faces widespread urban
pollution. In 2006, China became the leading emitter of carbon dioxide in the
world. The country is already home to 16 of the world's 20 worst air quality
cities, with particulates such as nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide making live
miserable and hazardous in most of China's cities.
The Chinese government hopes to alleviate urban pollution and make Chinese bus
manufacturers dominant players by supporting the development of
alternative-fuel transit vehicles.
Large-scale capital investment for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and a concern for
presenting a clean city to overseas visitors for the event, helped to bring
electric buses to that city, and the same is now happening in Shanghai in
advance of the World Expo.
In 2008, Beijing employed 50 super-capacitor lithium-ion electric buses around
the city to ferry visitors of the Beijing Olympics. Shanghai hopes to go one up
next year, by deploying more than 500 zero-emissions vehicles, including
super-capacitor electric and hydrogen fuel cell buses, for visitors traveling
to the trade extravanganza. The city will also introduce 4,000 hybrid buses on
the road in time for the event.
This year, China launched the "10 city, 1,000 buses" initiative to encourage
the adoption and development of alternative fuel buses across the country. The
initiative calls for more than 10 of China's large cities, such as Shanghai,
Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Wuhan and Zhuzhou, to put 1,000 alternative fuel
vehicles on the streets within the next three to four years. The plan also
calls for public services - taxis, postal services, public transit companies,
government agencies - to adopt at least 60,000 alternative fuel vehicles. In
doing so, they will help obtain the national goal of having 10% of China's
domestic vehicles using alternative fuel by 2012.
Electric buses are the most promising alternative fuel vehicles in the near
term. This type of vehicle has been around for decades, but the next generation
of electric bus will utilize new battery technology and infrastructure to make
them more competitive in price and efficiency with the diesel buses prevalent
in most cities today.
Electric buses offer less vibration, lower emissions, less noise pollution,
higher efficiency, and often lower costs over the lifetime of the vehicle than
conventional diesel-powered counterparts.
Nonetheless, there are still significant barriers to their widespread adoption.
They still require a higher initial capital investment than diesel engines to
develop the recharging infrastructure or power lines necessary for daily
operation. Many types of existing electric buses also utilize different types
of infrastructure.
Among the four broad categories of electric buses that operate in China today,
hybrid-electric vehicles utilize lithium-ion batteries to reduce reliance on
traditional diesel or gasoline engine for propulsion. Trolley buses, which have
come in and out of popularity for decades, use overhead electric wires to
charge capacitors in the vehicles.
Lithium-ion electric buses use lithium-ion batteries to power an electric motor
and motor controller, rather than a gasoline or diesel engine. Due to the lack
of recharge infrastructure and limits of lithium-ion recharge speeds these
buses operate during the day and charge at night, reducing reduce demand on the
power grid during peak hours.
Ultracapacitor vehciles are a new type of bus that uses overhead recharge
stations at bus stops to recharge a capacitor in the bus, rather than using
batteries or diesel fuel. While, these ultracapacitors can only function for a
couple of miles on a single charge, they can charge much faster than
battery-powered buses, making them ideal for metro buses with frequent starts
and stops.
China's leading bus manufacturers Zhengzhou Yutong Bus and Xiamen King Long
United Automotive Industry are dominant players in hybrid-electric bus
technology.
Yutong's new hybrid electric metro-bus (the ZK6126HGZ1) claims to have 15-20%
better fuel economy than traditional counterparts. Currently, Yutong has seven
hybrid buses in trial operation in Beijing, the southern industrial center of
Guangzhou and Zhengzhou, in central Henan province.
Xiamen King Long Motor, a subsidiary of Xiamen King Long United Automotive
Industry, partnered with Dongfeng Electric Car Technology Group in 2004 to
produce two hybrid electric bus models, with one, the XMQ6125GH, already
involved in trial operations in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province.
Zhongtong Bus & Holding, Anhui Ankai Automobile, and First Automobile Works
(FAW) Group are leading China in the development of battery-powered electric
buses. Zhongtong Bus has three fully-electric models and six hybrid-electric,
with its LCK6128EV model capable of running 250 kilometers on a single charge.
Zhongtong Bus provided five fully-electric buses for the 2008 Beijing Olympics
and will produce 200-300 alternative fuel buses for the 10 cities, 1,000 buses
initiative.
Ankai Automobile Co's fully-electric battery-powered bus model (the
HFF6127K46EV) was also put to use during the Beijing Olympics and will be
featured in the Shanghai World Expo. Ankai's new third generation
battery-powered model claims to travel up to 200 kilometers on a single charge
and recharge in less than four hours.
FAW Bus and Coach has partnered with Tongkun New Energy to release a new line
of battery-powered buses capable of covering 300 kilometers on one charge and
recharging in under 20 minutes. Jilin province in northeast China has already
agreed to purchase 70 of these new 24-passenger buses.
Shanghai Sunwin Bus Corporation (SUNWIN) is a joint-venture between Shanghai
Automotive Industry Corp (SAIC), Volvo China Investment Group, and Volvo Bus
Corp. Recently, Sunwin has provided buses to Shanghai Aowei Technology
Development Company and its US partner Sinautec Automobile Technologies to
develop a new model of ultracapacitor electric buses. Over the past three
years, they have built 17 of these buses in the outskirts of Shanghai.
Rather than using overhead power-lines to recharge buses, these buses will
recharge using designated stations at bus stops. SAIC Motor Group has agreed to
provide 300 electric-line buses and 36 super-capacitor buses for the Shanghai
World Expo in 2010 under the SUNWIN brand.
All this activity, backed by government goals, will give Chinese manufacturers
serving the world's largest market for buses, additional advantages to propel
the spread of electric buses worldwide and put them in the driving seat to
dominate that market.
Ryan Rutkowski is a masters student studying international economics at
the Johns Hopkins-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies
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