BYD Co., the Shenzhen-based automaker, projected it will sell as many as 200 electric buses in the United States this year after securing its biggest order from a mass-transit operator.

    The Long Beach Transit Authority on Monday awarded a US$11.7-million contract to Los Angeles-based BYD Motors Inc. to manufacture 10 battery-powered electric buses and charging systems, BYD senior vice president Stella Li said.

    The transit authority, which serves portions of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, will order 10 battery-powered buses with options for its partner agencies to buy as many as 50 more.

    “Today’s order is a fundamental game changer for the industry,” Li said. “We are entering a harvesting stage in the U.S. and I have high expectations for this market.”

    “The long Beach Transit Board made a historic decision today that will not only benefit our customers, but will also be a win for the community,” Long Beach Transit CEO Kenneth McDonald said in a statement.

    The buses will be zero-emission, McDonald said, adding that they will be “the cleanest bus we have offered to date” and on the “leading edge of technology in the industry.”

    According to BYD, over the next five years, the implementation of 60 BYD electric buses could save Southern California from 56,700 tons of carbon emissions. To manage these equivalent emissions, it would take the planting of about 526,000 trees, or foresting an area the size of 365 soccer fields.

    The Long Beach deal marks BYD’s biggest order for electric buses outside its home market since the company opened a bus factory in California a year ago to push into the United States, Canadian and Latin American markets. The company has sold more than 5,000 electric buses globally, with about 50 of its buses in operation in the United States.

    BYD aims to sell about 15,000 electric cars to taxi fleets and about 6,000 electric buses this year, Hou Yan, the company’s head of sales, told reporters at the Shanghai auto show last week.

    The company also plans to start taking orders for electric trucks from overseas buyers in the second half of the year and begin deliveries in 2016, with the United States one of the likely first destinations, Li said. The plan is to manufacture the trucks in the United States after initially exporting them from China, she said.

    (SD-Xinhua)