It was guns blazing at the national bus and coach show this year as everyone, from bus distributors, manufacturers and suppliers of HVAC to safety equipment and even accreditation managers, brought in their best game for what seems like a two-day-long show and tell.
Looming large in the limelight was local bus producer Nexport, whose parent company, GoZero Group, used the event to announce it would acquire BusTech, another local bus manufacturer that entered administration in early August.
But looming even larger were Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers, with Yutong (which hosted The Fifth Estate’s travel to the expo) holding court to a big contingent of staff and clients flown in from China and local stakeholders.
Other Chinese-owned EV manufacturers, such as BYD and Volvo, were also present, joining Swiss manufacturers HESS, responsible for manufacturing the up-and-coming Brisbane Metro; electrification specialists ABB; UK-based management software providers Distinctive Systems; US mechanical systems company Valvoline and even Australian startups such as our Greenlisters Hailo.
The show attracted many government and community stakeholders. Especially local governments whose representatives flew in from all over the country to either back their local manufacturers or hunt for the next generation of electric buses to hit their city roads.
Notable among them were the Brisbane City Council, which sent staff and a whole team from the Brisbane Transport Museum and fleets of public transport e-buses from Adelaide and Melbourne also turned up.
It was no wonder that Yutong, understood to be China’s first electric bus supplier founded in 1997, went all out for this showcase. The company flew in over 50 clients and guests from across the world to attend the expo and a number of events over three days, including its “brand night”, a red carpet affair at the Brisbane City Town Hall.
The chat among industry insiders during its “farewell night” event revealed the outreach potentially cost upwards of $70,000. The Fifth Estate was one of several media outlets invited to cover the event.
The bus company is not new to Australia. It was first introduced to the Australian market in 2012 and now has more than 1500 fleets operating nationwide.
The company launched its electric minibus at the expo, a model made to serve smaller communities, precincts and university campuses.
The unveiling was dramatic, and many employees told this masthead it was the first time they had viewed the new product.
Announcements kept coming one after the other. There was the Yutong Electric Infrastructure or YEA as well as its carbon-free forest initiative – which, for its intended purpose, was a little lost in translation and related more to an anti-desertification measure than forests.
Speakers on the night included Brisbane city councillor Ryan Murphy, who serves as the council’s transport committee chair.
- What Murphy talked about on the night coming soon
There was also Sue Chan, Australian and New Zealand head of the International Association of Public Transport; James Gauci, chief commercial operator of VDI Australia – Yutong’s official Australian distributor as well as Kent Chang, chief executive of Yutong Asia Pacific as well as vice president of the APAC executive committee.
Following the grandiose promotions, orchestral string performances, and great hurrah was the launch of the YEA system in Australia. While not much was said on the night, distributors describe the digital architecture as a system designed to “seamlessly integrate hardware and software in electric buses”.
This meant that buses would be configured to have computers that optimised the bus’s performance and energy efficiency over the long term.
On carbon free forests and moving towards the future
Almost as a side note, the company’s global “carbon-free forest” initiative, launched on the night, was described as “the company will plant a tree for every vehicle sold”, which “ensures long-term scalability and environmental support”. This adds up to more than 16,000 trees to be planted, which one participant said “doesn’t cut it in Australia”.
However, the language barrier needs clarification.
During a media salon, where APAC chief executive Kent Chang privately addressed and answered questions from the media guests, he revealed that the initiative was already underway and had been for a while. He pointed to his media advisor, Jason Huang, who explained to this masthead in Chinese that the “trees” in question were not quite full-sized but rather the “Haloxylon ammodendron”, known through its Turkic name – the saxaul, which belongs to a family of perennial herbs, shrubs and sometimes vines or trees.
The saxaul ranges in size from a large shrub to a small tree and is generally native to China and Central Asia. According to Huang, the manufacturer has planted more than 16,000 of these shrubs across the borders of the Gobi Desert to support reforestation of the native plantation and prevent further desertification.
“While there are carbon offsets being produced by these plants, it is not something that we measure at this time,” Huang said.
The media salon and moving towards the future
During the media salon, Chang further emphasised that the direction of the company and the products it sells were dependent on both regulatory needs and buyers, many of whom were government.
According to its distributors, the company spends around 7 per cent of its annual operating revenue on research and development (R&D), an arm in which it has invested since its inception. Chang says its R&D in the new energy bus technology put it above competitors.
“For us, new energy means fully electric, hybrid and, of course, hydrogen buses. For example, we selected our fully electric buses as our next generation of buses and coaches in Australia after diesel because we found out the governments in Australia and New Zealand are very concerned about the protection of culture, eco-friendly and environmentally friendly products.
Meanwhile, China has not only seen a nationwide uptake of fully electric buses, but Yutong’s hydrogen buses are now fully functional in a number of cities after hydrogen fuel cell buses successfully supported the 2018 Beijing Winter Olympics in becoming more sustainable.
When asked about why the company still has diesel bus fleets servicing parts of the nation, Chang replies, “It is market driven, and obviously [we] want to be able to cater for whatever the market is demanding, but [we]’re seeing internal goals towards specific technologies.”
Staff also confirmed to TFE that the newly unveiled minibus was driverless across some precincts in China. Chang confirmed that the minibus was in service at some community and university precincts, with one driverless bus now deployed in Singapore. However, whether the technology could be used in Australia was “up to government and policies”.
- More about the technology behind the minibus and other fleets coming soon
When asked about its electric truck products, Chang and Huang were quick to laugh and say, “watch this space” as they “may have something very soon.” Upon further probing, Chang admits that the manufacturers were “very confident” in expanding their [bus] technology and “making it work in Australia” but has yet to secure a suitable industrial warehouse space for local manufacturing.
The manufacturer’s truck website reveals that the company had recently expanded into Mexico in August, rolling out a fleet of 37 electric light trucks to support urban distribution logistics, medicine, dairy product transportation and other fields in the country.