BYD delivers first e-buses made in Canada to Toronto

BYD is delivering ten electric buses to the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). The e-buses for Canada’s largest city will come from BYD’s local assembly plant opened in mid-2019 in Newmarket near Toronto.

The first two units of type K9M produced at the Canadian plant have already been delivered, with the remaining eight vehicles to follow shortly. The K9 model is one of BYD’s best-selling e-buses; the low-floor bus is built at various BYD plants around the world – each with minor local modifications. The European models, for example, are manufactured in Hungary. Newmarket will serve the market in North America.

With the current delivery, the Chinese group is more concerned with the special relationship with Toronto than with the importance of the delivery itself – BYD has received significantly larger orders in other countries. The Newmarket plant is the first e-bus plant in Ontario and demonstrates BYD’s commitment to creating jobs in the province, the company said. Its Vice President for BYD Canada, Ted Dowling, added that “BYD is well-positioned to replicate in Canada the kind of rapid growth we’ve seen in places like Lancaster, California — a plant which started with about 100 workers in 2013 and now employs more than 750.”

Besides, major follow-up orders from Canada’s largest city are attracting large numbers of customers: the Toronto Transit Commission plans to procure only electric buses from 2025 and to have a purely electric bus fleet by 2040. According to the company, each of the buses now delivered will save nine tons of nitrogen oxides, 159 kilograms of particulate emissions and around 1,500 tons of CO2 over their twelve-year service life.

BYD is among the world’s largest producer of electric buses, garnering electric bus contracts in South America, North America, Europe, South Asia, North-East Asia, and of course, China. In December 2018, the first BYD electric bus made in France rolled off the assembly line.

byd.com (pdf)