Innovative Design

16,000 Electric Buses Are Now on the Streets of One of the World’s Largest Cities

The electric buses will save an estimated 345,000 tons of fuel each year
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Shenzhen, China, now features more than 16,000 all-electric buses for public transportation.Photo: Getty Images/Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

Many major municipalities have announced their intention to combat the effects of climate change by moving away from gas-powered buses in the years ahead. While this has mostly consisted of pledges, experimental efforts, and gradual rollouts around the globe, one city has converted its bus fleet to become fully green—and has done so even earlier than expected.

As of late December 2017, all 16,359 city buses in Shenzhen, China, now run on electric power. Officials estimate that serving the city’s 12 million residents with electric buses will save an estimated 345,000 tons of fuel each year, ultimately reducing CO2 emissions by about 1.35 million tons annually.

Though Shenzhen already had the world’s largest fleet of electric buses at its disposal when work began, electrifying the full fleet required some serious expenditures. It cost the city of Shenzhen hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase buses from several different manufacturers and install the 8,000 charge points and 510 bus-charging stations. These infrastructure investments ensure that half of the whole fleet can juice up at the same time.

With this ambitious project crossed off the city's list, Zheng Jingyu, who is the head of Shenzhen’s public transit department, wants to move on to a fully electrified fleet of taxis next. Currently, an estimated 62.5 percent of the city’s 12,518 cabs run on renewables rather than gas. Jingyu says he aims to complete the project by 2020.

Given that 12 major cities made news a few months ago when they pledged to buy only zero-emission buses by 2025, the current state of Shenzhen’s bus system stands as a monumental achievement. Hopefully this development accelerates the electric-bus arms race among the other megacities of the world.