Adoption of electric buses will triple worldwide by 2025, meaning just under half the world’s buses will be powered by electricity, a new report has said.
The report, produced by research and analysis firm Wood Mackenzie, notes that global adoption has predominantly been driven by China, which accounted for around 98% of the world’s electric bus fleet and is projected to pass one million electric buses by 2023. By 2025 China’s electric bus fleet is expected to rise to 1.2 million.
Timotej Gavrilovic, Wood Mackenzie Contributing Research Analyst, said: “In 2018, 23% of bus purchases in China were electric. Overall bus purchases in the country are expected to remain stable, with 420,000 new purchases by 2025. Electric bus purchases are expected to increase along with further market growth and continuing government support, reaching 40% of new bus purchases globally in 2040. Most transit and school bus operators are still wary of e-buses [electric buses] as a new technology and will continue testing the equipment prior to investing in scaling current deployments. However, government and transit agencies have clean transportation targets that should accelerate growth beyond 2025. Long haul e-buses are not expected to enter the market before 2023 and will likely be limited to 1% of new sales through 2025. European e-bus growth is driven by urban bus deployments, while the US market is driven by transit and school e-buses.”
The report states that around 40,000 heavy duty electric vehicles, including electric buses, will be on the roads in Europe and the USA by 2025. Widespread rollout of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, meanwhile, will mean that Europe, China and the US will have around 108,000 chargepoints in place by 2025.
Gavrilovic added: “Government, school bus operators and transit agencies are not the only organisations impacting and influencing electrification. US and European utilities are beginning to examine new models to support clustered charging at depots and encourage operators to manage charging for the benefit of the grid. Dominion Virginia Power offered the most aggressive proposal yet, to develop the charging infrastructure and pay the cost difference between a diesel bus and an electric bus for 100% of all diesel bus replacements in their service territory by 2030.”
