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BYD "E-Bus"


MaT

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  • 2 weeks later...

BYD did not submit the paperwork to get their vehicles approved in Canada, Transit Windsor got fed up waiting and are ordering new buses from New Flyer this year and next.

Last heard is that the K9 pass the Altoona test already~

don't really think BYD will get the bus approved in Canada in a short time, given the fact that they have decided to build a plant in California to build the K9 bus down there, which is much more sense making in terms on the size of orders they are expecting to receive(comparing to <10 bus order for Windsor huh?)

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Last heard is that the K9 pass the Altoona test already~

don't really think BYD will get the bus approved in Canada in a short time, given the fact that they have decided to build a plant in California to build the K9 bus down there, which is much more sense making in terms on the size of orders they are expecting to receive(comparing to <10 bus order for Windsor huh?)

BYD had signed an agreement with the city of Windsor that if the city bought some of their buses they would locate a plan in the city. Unfortunately ages later, they still hadn't submitted the paperwork to get the vehicles approved, no purchase order was submitted and they decided to build their plant in California. Meanwhile, Transit Windsor is ordering 4 clean diesel buses using money they were going to use to refresh their shuttle fleet (which they lost the contract for).

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  • 2 weeks later...

LA Metro has now ordered 25 BYD buses as well. 5 at first to test then the additional 20...

http://thesource.metro.net/2013/06/27/metro-to-purchase-first-electric-buses-for-l-a-county-transit-riders/

Here is the Long Beach Transit board meeting agency from the last board meeting. They get monthly updates on the BYD bus project and those are listed in the agenda.

http://longbeach.granicus.com/DocumentViewer.php?file=longbeach_9efb67b277cab7f18f4aed82b25c9f27.pdf&view=1

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

Long Beach Transit's zero-emission bus initiative will take longer than expected as two major issues—bus weight and cracks in the bus structure—bring new challenges in the procurement of ten electric buses from Chinese-owned company BYD.

Source: http://www.lbpost.co...nt#.Uh1FvpgeWJU

At Monday's LBT board meeting, Long Beach's Chief Traffic Engineer David Roseman expressed concern over the excessive weight of the BYD-purchased buses, ultimately showing that it would take a toll on streets and increase costs necessary to maintain them. Transit officials were forthright in admitting they knew of the weight issue before choosing to award BYD the contract.

"BYD did provide the vehicle weight before the contract was signed," said LBT spokesperson Dana Pynn. "The weight of these particular buses is not a new subject and has been discussed throughout the entire process, including during the board workshops held prior to the board’s approval of the contract."

Rolando Cruz, Executive Director and Vice President of Maintenance and Facilities at Long Beach Transit, also updated the board Monday on BYD's progress in having their buses tested at Altoona, the federal facility which oversees and tests the efficiency and structural soundness of public transit vehicles.

According to Cruz's presentation, the coach that is being tested—which comes from a BYD facility in China, not its now-open Lancaster facility that is due to create the LBT fleet—completed six of the 17 required tasks as of July 12 before visible cracks began to show above the rear door. Though it had only completed around 2600 miles worth of tests, BYD then pulled the bus and determined that the cracks were due to poor welding, asserting the issue was not related to a design flaw.

Information from the original RFQ shows that second runner up Proterra's contract cost more than BYD's, however, Proterra's bus showed both a lower curb weight—25,000lbs versus BYD's 30,423lbs—and gross vehicle weight—37,000lb versus 39,700lbs. Furthermore, Proterra's buses had already passed Altoona testing at the time of the bid.

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Though it had only completed around 2600 miles worth of tests, BYD then pulled the bus and determined that the cracks were due to poor welding, asserting the issue was not related to a design flaw.

Um, wouldn't you maybe want to spend a little extra time and make sure everything is being done well on a unit you're assembling for a test that can make or break your marketability in the US?

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • Board Admin

Some interesting pictures here:

New York City Transit testing all-electric BYD bus

The test will determine if this type of bus can meet the twin challenges of operating in the stop-and-go traffic of Manhattan while maintaining high levels of passenger comfort and operational performance. Read More »

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I'm not really surprised at all. I don't mean to throw politics into this, but if you are familiar with Chinese labour practices, this is pretty much a norm. I expect our BYD units to have a "Made in China" quality to them, and will probably end up the way of our hybrid 42-BRT's.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/los_angeles&id=9308910

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  • 1 month later...

Damage Control: BYD brings crisis manager to address issues

http://la.streetsblo...-address-issues

That Brian Addison guy is basically the source of all the negative articles on the internet about BYD. He uses various different websites to publish basically the same story but reference them to each other as to appear that there is a ground swell of opposition to LB Transit's purchase of these buses, when it is only him. To me, he has no credibility left whatsoever. He previous posts on the subject verges on outright racism and plenty of misinformation. Whatever he has to say about BYD should be taken with a grain (maybe a large sack) of salt. I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to be a paid guerrilla media by BYD's competitor.

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That Brian Addison guy is basically the source of all the negative articles on the internet about BYD. He uses various different websites to publish basically the same story but reference them to each other as to appear that there is a ground swell of opposition to LB Transit's purchase of these buses, when it is only him. To me, he has no credibility left whatsoever. He previous posts on the subject verges on outright racism and plenty of misinformation. Whatever he has to say about BYD should be taken with a grain (maybe a large sack) of salt. I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to be a paid guerrilla media by BYD's competitor.

I don't see evidence that what you say is true. For example, here is an article from the NY Times (not written by Mr. Addison) which details broken promises made by BYD and details why the state of CA fined the company for failing to pay the minimum wage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/26/us/chinese-company-falling-short-of-goal-for-california-jobs.html?_r=1&

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The STM unveiled the BYD demo from STO back on December 11th.

English: http://www.stm.info/...-bus-from-china

Français: http://www.stm.info/...ment-electrique

Thanks for posting the media release link. I had the fortunate opportunity to ride bus 1322 when it was being tested by STO.

I did post three video links on the STO thread of the bus, but if anyone did not get a chance to see the them, I'll embed two of the three here:

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