China's BYD Hopes to Have 100 Electric Taxis on Shenzhen Roads by Month's End
By Scott Doggett June 15, 2010Chinese automaker BYD hopes to have 100 purely electric taxis on Shenzhen's roads by the end of the month, ClimateWire reported today.
The company has already placed 30 of its e6 battery-electric taxis into service in the city. Sources say the company will have 560 operating as taxis by the end of the year, with the ultimate goal of 1,500 - or 10 percent of all the city's cabs.
The taxies are marked with the words "zero emission" and have the slogan "This is not a conventional car, this is a declaration of environmental protection" written across the back.
The company says the taxis are not an experiment, but rather "a real business."
Taxi drivers say they have not noticed a difference in driving the electric taxis. In fact, many in the Pengcheng Electric Taxi Co. and the Shenzhen Bus Group say the electric vehicles operate the same as gas-powered ones.
The cars have a range of 186 miles on a single charge, which can take one hour at a fast-charging outlet and four hours at a low-voltage one. There are three charging stations in the city, but there are plans for as many as 12,750 to be built by 2012.
BYD also plans to release the car in the United States later this year, where it will retail for just over $40,000.
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