São Paulo expands electric bus fleet with 500 new vehicles

São Paulo has introduced 500 new battery-electric buses, increasing its zero-emission fleet to 1,759 vehicles, including trolleybuses. More than half of the latest deliveries come from BYD, while the city has confirmed it will no longer procure buses powered exclusively by diesel.

Sao paolo byd electric buses — Image: Prefeitura de São Paulo

Chinese manufacturer BYD supplied 265 of the newly introduced vehicles, accounting for more than half of the latest batch. According to the company, the delivery represents the largest single handover of heavy-duty electric buses in Brazil to date.

The vehicles supplied by BYD include the D9W electric bus and the BC22 articulated model designed for high-capacity urban routes. The BC22 is a 23-metre-long articulated bus equipped with BYD’s Blade Battery technology, which is also used in the company’s passenger car range.

Following the latest delivery, BYD now has nearly 550 electric buses operating in São Paulo and around 700 vehicles in service across Brazil. The company manufactures electric bus chassis at its facility in Campinas and battery systems at its plant in Manaus.

The city administration also announced that future fleet acquisitions will no longer include buses powered exclusively by diesel. The decision builds on procurement policies introduced by transport authority SPTrans in 2022, when the purchase of new diesel-only buses was restricted as part of the city’s decarbonisation strategy.

The Brazilian metropolis maintains the country’s largest electric bus fleet and continues to accelerate the electrification of its public transport system. With the latest deliveries, São Paulo now operates 1,759 electric buses, including 189 trolleybuses.

The pace of electrification has increased significantly over the past 18 months. At the beginning of 2025, São Paulo’s electric bus fleet comprised around 460 vehicles, according to an earlier report by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT). As of February, the number had even risen to 1,271 units.

São Paulo’s electric bus expansion comes amid broader growth of zero-emission public transport across Latin America. Industry figures indicate that the region’s electric bus fleet surpassed 10,000 vehicles. According to the ICCT, Chile, Colombia, and Brazil make up most of the fleet (80%), with deployment clustered in a few major cities

canaltech.com.br (in Portugese), sustainable-bus.com