Xia Yuanjie

szrbgracexia@126.com

A TOTAL of 76 BYD e-buses orderd by public transport operator Nobina will be put into operation in the Finnish capital Helsinki this month, BYD said in a release Thursday.

Forty-three e-buses were delivered to the city of Turku in July, adding up to a total of 119 e-buses — the largest-ever fleet in Finland now ready for operation.

The Shenzhen-based electric vehicle manufacturer entered the Finnish market after signing an order with Nobina for 106 e-buses to operate in the country in September 2020. This order was later increased to 119 e-buses.

Nobina partnered with the Helsinki Regional Transport Authority to host an event at its Finland headquarters to launch the electric bus series Tuesday. The new fleet includes BYD’s updated 15-meter city e-bus, which made its debut in the Turku area, 23 units of the 12-meter model, eight units of BYD’s recently updated 13-meter variant and 44 high-capacity 18-meter articulated buses.

The fleet’s largest model, the 18-meter articulated e-bus with a seating capacity of 112 passengers and charging capacity of 300 kilowatts, is more popular in the market, according to BYD.

Among the 119 units, all of the new 12-meter model e-buses were built at BYD’s manufacturing facility in Hungary.

During Tuesday’s ceremony, Petri Auno, managing director of Nobina Finland, said that from mid-August, Nobina will be the biggest electric bus operator in Finland, with more than 110 fully electric BYD buses working across the Turku and Helsinki regions. He also announced plans to double the number of electric buses deployed by Nobina in Finland by next year.

BYD Europe managing director Isbrand Ho said during a speech that the company will continue to promote the sustainable transport solution across the country.

Since 2015, over 300 units of purely electric vehicles have been delivered or on order in the Nordic market. BYD’s green cars have covered over 25 million “electric kilometers” in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, equivalent to reducing 27,000 tons of CO2 emissions.