China’s e-bus fleet to surpass 1mn mark by 2023

Fuelled by public policy and declining battery costs, global electric bus adoption is set to triple by 2025. The Chinese market – the most promising in this sector – will surpass the 1mn e-bus mark by 2023 and reach 1.3mn by 2025, according to new research from Wood Mackenzie.

China dominates the heavy-duty electric vehicle (EV) segment, accounting for 98% of the global e-bus market through 2018. To support this high concentration of e-buses, a total of more than 50,000 e-bus charging points will be installed by the end of 2019. This figure is set to more than double by the end of 2025.

Timotej Gavrilovic, Wood Mackenzie Contributing Research Analyst, says: ‘In 2018, 23% of bus purchases in China were electric. Overall bus purchases in the country are expected to remain stable, with 420,000 new purchases by 2025. Electric bus purchases are expected to increase along with further market growth and continuing government support, reaching 40% of new bus purchases globally in 2040.’

According to the Wood Mackenzie report, a combined 40,000 electric heavy-duty vehicles will be on the roads in the US and Europe by 2025. The current market will expand to 7,300 e-buses by the end of 2019, representing pilot schemes across both regions that will add up to nearly $6bn in market value.

The deployment of e-bus charging infrastructure has already started to surge in China. However, growth in the US and Europe is limited by the size of existing pilots – where one to five charging points are typically enough to support several buses. Despite this, the total number of charging points for all three regions will more than double to a total of 108,000 charging points by 2025.

Over 68,000 depot chargers will be installed globally from 2019 to 2025 to meet EV bus charging demand, with more than 9,000 located in Europe and the US, reports Wood Mackenzie.