The BYD Electric Transit Bus, making news across North America, is now approved for sale and operations in Canada after earning the Canadian Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (CMVSS) Certification and being placed on the “Vehicle Manufacturers Registry” with Transport Canada. Canada Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (CMVSS) prescribes the minimum performance levels that vehicles and equipment must meet to run on Canadian roads and includes several standards beyond the U.S. Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS). Evidence of a vendor meeting these standards as well as “other documents … including an Approved Motor Vehicle Safety Test Method, a Technical Standards Document, and/or another third party published test methodology, and are essential to remove ambiguities about the specified tests and testing methodologies to be used in certification testing,” according to http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/motorvehiclesafety/tp-tp12957-menu-173.htm#introduction.
BYD’s pure-electric bus employs many advanced technologies developed in-house by BYD’s staff of more than 15,000 engineers such as the advanced, environmentally-friendly Iron-Phosphate (or “Fe”) batteries, in-wheel hub motors and regenerative braking. The break-through Iron-Phosphate battery is fire-safe and non-toxic: there are no caustic materials contained in the battery, no toxic electrolytes or heavy metals and can be completely recycled. The BYD electric bus delivers a host of operational and environmental benefits for public transport riders, operators and people in the community – it is very quiet and ensures a comfortable ride without vibrations, jerks or noise associated with the conventional buses and combustion engines. The bus can also drive up to 250 km (155 miles) and even up to 30 hours in heavy city traffic on a single night-time charge. The bus has completed more than 20 million kilometers of “in revenue service” and has been evaluated in many major cities all over the world.
BYD Motors Inc. is an American manufacturing company and a wholly-owned subsidiary of BYD Company Ltd, the largest domestic auto-manufacturer and electric-bus manufacturer in China. BYD is a publicly traded company, with the Hong Kong listed stock 60% of which is owned by U.S. investors, and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway as the largest single shareholder at 9.9%.
