Italian version of this news available at International Business Times Magazine.

Electric cars struggle against economic and infrastructures problems. Recent US Pike research research estimated in 23.000 $ the acceptable costs for users, too far away from real pricing of new vehicles. A provocative proposals comes from BYD chinese company, as it launched an city electric public transport solution: the ‘Zero vehicle purchase price, Zero costs, Zero emissions’ solution for the taxi and bus market. China Development Bank will provide financial support for the scheme. The scheme aims to ease the financial pressure on taxi and pay the full amount upfront for the purchase of electric vehicles.

The energy crisis, climate change and environmental pollution has led to a social consensus to develop electric vehicles. Considering only public transport,there are currently 500,000 public buses and 1.2 million taxis nationally. They constitute 1.7% of the total number of motor vehicles, but 27% of fuel consumption and more than 27% of total emissions. There is urgent need for public transport electrification. However, patchy technology among enterprises, relatively high vehicle purchase and related costs and under-developed business models have meant that the speed of uptake of electric vehicles has been unsatisfactory.

As a leader in new energy vehicles, BYD launched the e6 pure electric vehicle. It is well established and stable, with adequate range on one charge. It also launched a pure electric bus. Not only this, it has also led the effort in ‘public transport electrification’. BYD successfully launched commercial operations of scale in locations such as Shenzhen, Xi’an, Baoji, Shaoguan, the Netherlands, Singapore, the United States, Denmark, Germany and London in the U.K. The 300 e6 pure electric taxis operating in Shenzhen have clocked up a total of almost 26 million kilometers. The longest distance of a single vehicle is now near 240,000 kilometers, equivalent to more than 10 years of mileage for a regular private car. Similarly, the 200 pure electric buses operating in Shenzhen have an accumulated mileage of over 10 million kilometres.

Zero vehicle purchase price: free choice from three models

The so-called ‘Zero vehicle purchase price’ means that enterprise clients do not need to bear the vehicle purchase cost in one go, but it can purchase vehicles on a ‘zero initial payment + payment in instalments’ basis. To allow different types of clients to benefit from this, BYD is launching three operating models: a financial lease, an operational lease and buyer’s credit. This also fulfils the different requirements of taxi and public bus companies. Clients can choose what suits them best.

Zero costs: a profitable operational scheme

The new plan not only realises ‘zero initial payment’, but also because the price of electricity is much lower than that of petrol, the cost saving from usage will far outweigh the higher cost of purchase for the electric vehicles and even outweigh the higher cost of purchase itself. The company estimates to save up to 54.000€ in 5 years that come down to 39.000€ considering extra costs of electric vehicles. A Shenzhen taxi travels an average of 450km per day and operates for 353 days a year (taxis on average have a one-day service each month). Each taxi saves up to 1.000€ monthly compared to less than 500€ monthly instalments.

Zero emissions: Convenience of charging with electricity replaces consumption of petrol.

The scheme of ‘Zero vehicle purchasing price, Zero costs, Zero emissions’ not only provides convenience of purchase and saves operating costs for public transport and taxi companies, but also brings substantial social value. As the vehicles are pure electric, zero emissions and zero pollution, once scaled up, the energy saving and emissions reduction will be very significant. An e6 electric taxi saves 14,120 litres of fuel per year, with 32 tonnes fewer CO2 emissions, truly implementing zero emissions, zero pollution and green driving. If the 1.2 million taxis in China were all replaced by pure electric vehicles, in one year, 169 million litres of fuel could be saved, and CO2 emissions reduced by 38.62 million tonnes.

 Thanks to Byd