BYD to deliver 200 T3 e-vans to cabbies in Indonesia

Indonesia’s largest taxi operator, Blue Bird, has ordered 200 electric vans from BYD. 150 of the seven-seater EVs of type T3 will be used in Jakarta, the remaining 50 in Bali.

BYD had already delivered the first e6 electric taxis to Blue Bird in April of this year. Despite the previous order, BYD says the new van order is “by far the largest pure electric taxi order in Indonesia, which also smashes BYD’s record for its biggest pure electric vans order overseas”. The T3 electric van belongs to a new range of BYD commercial EVs that the company also introduced in Europe earlier this year after they had been made available in China.

As a leading Indonesia taxi operator, Blue Bird owns more than 30,000 taxis. All of the 200 now ordered vans are 7-seater pure electric models and will be operated as taxis. The company expects the e-vans deployment to save more than 3.5 million litres fuel annually.

The electrification is also well in line with Indonesia’s plan to become a hub as well as exporter of electric vehicles. The Indonesian government recently announced a series of EV incentives as well as supporting the manufacture of these in the country. And, international automakers such as Hyundai and Toyota are already focussing on Indonesia for the production and development of electric vehicles. The country not only has the largest GDP in the Southeast Asian region but also significant quantities of cobalt and nickel. This has already attracted interest from global companies in a battery consortium.

It is not a new market for BYD either. When Indonesia hosted the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank on Bali in October 2018, the Chinese EV giant claims to have been “the only EV brand to serve the forum with pure electric buses”.

Also, during the Busworld Southeast Asia exhibition in March this year, BYD and Trans Jakarta, the local BRT operator, signed an MOU to provide zero-emission public transport solutions for Jakarta.

Yet back to BYD and Blue Bird. The initial order of 26 electric taxis has been a success and now counts a total of two million kilometres travelled in Jakarta in the past six months, “equivalent to circling the earth 50 times,” according to BYD.

Globally, BYD claims its pure electric buses and taxis have spread to over 300 cities, operating in more than 50 countries and regions. The most recent order for the BYD T3 van came from India where Eto Motors wants to procure around 4,000 three- and four-wheeled electric vehicles produced for use in 20 cities over the next year.

Source: Press release via email