Asia Pacific Electric Bus Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

The Asia Pacific Electric Bus Market is expected to exhibit a growth rate of over 11% during the forecast period (2020 - 2025).

Key Highlights

• Some of the major factors driving the growth of the market are growing environmental concerns (owing to rising exhaust emissions), enactment of stringent emissions and fuel economy norms, and increasing government initiatives, in terms of subsidies and benefits for increasing the adoption rate of electric vehicles and to replace heavy-duty diesel and gasoline-run buses with zero-emission electric buses are expected to propel the demand for and growth of the high-performance electric vehicles market.
• However, fluctuations in government policies and subsidies are likely to impact the growth of electric buses. For instance, the Chinese government is planning to withdraw subsidies on electric buses by 2020, which is further anticipated to impact the cost of electric buses in the country, during the forecast period.
• In addition to this, the high costs associated with electric buses and installation of charging stations is hindering the growth of electric buses in developing countries like India.

Key Market Trends

Battery Electric Bus to Witness Growth

Transit agencies across various countries have been significantly promoting the adoption of electric buses for public transportation. Adoption rate is climbing in Asia Pacific and Europe. According to UITP, the global share of electric buses among the entire bus sale will be 10% in 2019 and is expected to cross 20% market share in 2020.

Nearly 600 electric buses were sold in India in the year 2019 - 2020 which amounts to almost 50% growth over 2018 - 2019. Olectra-BYD received an order of 765 electric buses from all the Indian States combined for the year 2020.

In August 2019, Government of India sanctioned 5095 electric buses for 64 states for intra city commuting, 400 e-buses for intercity operations and 100 e-buses for last mile connectivity to Delhi Metro rail corporation. Olectra-BYD is planning to set up its second electric bus manufacturing plant in North India. Its aim is to provide electric buses at lowest possible rates.

China Dominates the Electric Bus Market

China’s fleet of electric buses accounts for more than 98% of total electric buses running worldwide. China has a fleet of more than 425,000 electric buses. Europe just has 2250 electric buses. This high adoption can be attributed to strong municipal framework that many provinces in China has adopted.

More than 30 Chinese cities have made plans to achieve 100% electrified public transit by 2020, including Guangzhou, Zhuhai, Dongguan, Foshan, and Zhongshan in the Pearl River Delta, along with Nanjing, Hangzhou, Shaanxi, and Shandong.

As of December 2018, nearly 16,000 electric buses were operated in Shenzhen, one of the Chinese megacities. Beijing is all set to achieve its goal to put 10000 electric buses on road by 2020. Guangzhou ordered 4810 electric buses from the electric bus manufacturer BYD. Chinese manufacturers such as BYD has started joint ventures in other geographies as well. Olectra-BYD in India is committed to provide electric buses at very reasonable rates. However, the recent coronavirus outbreak resulted in production halt at major electric bus manufacturing facilities in China and other Asia pacific countries. This factor will hinder the market growth during the forecast period.

Competitive Landscape

Some of the major players in the electric bus market include BYD, Tata Motors, Yutong, etc. Among them, BYD continues to be the top player, owing to the increasing number of orders for its electric buses from the domestic and international markets.

In January 2020, Ashok Leyland Of India collaborated with ABB to manufacture electric buses using flash charge TOSA technology.

Additional Benefits:

• The market estimate (ME) sheet in Excel format
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