USA: BYD form $500M JV to lease electric buses
China’s BYD has formed a joint venture with the San Francisco investor Generate Capital. The 200 million dollar JV will lease BYD electric buses to cities, schools and corporations in the States. The partners consider their business an “all-around win”.
Not only BYD and Generate Capital aim to profit but they say their leasing model will facilitate financing of electric vehicles for public transit operators. These may shift the higher up-front cost of electric buses from a capital cost to a monthly expense.
Elaborates Scott Jacobs, Generate Capital’s CEO and co-founder: “Traditional leasing companies typically don’t value any residual in electric vehicles, which makes financing difficult. Programs like these are an all-around win for project developers, customers, and for the environment.”
Generate Capital will be responsible to, well, generate 200 million dollars for the joint venture to buy the buses. BYD will supply the electric vehicles and also market them to clients.
So far, BYD-Generate have found first takers in their own backyard. They sold 24 electric buses to customers in California, Colorado and New Mexico, among them Facebook and Stanford University, reports Bloomberg.
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