BYD announced the delivery of 470 pure electric buses to Bogota, the capital of Colombia. This is the country's largest pure electric bus fleet, and also the largest bus fleet BYD has delivered in the Americas.
The Bogota city government and the Bogota city public transport authority (Transmilenio) held a delivery ceremony for the first batch of 120 buses which will be used on nine routes across the city by from 26 December, 2020, and will serve approximately 69,300 passengers along the routes. The remaining 350 units will be put on the other 30 routes during the first quarter of 2021.
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A charging station in the Fontibon district of Bogota is equipped with 56 double-gun electric chargers with a power of 150KW. The construction of the charging station, the installation of the chargers and the power supply were handled by Codensa, a joint venture established by ENEL, an Italian power grid company and the Bogota Energy Group. When the buses and charging stations are officially put into operation, it is estimated that more than 400 job opportunities will be created for the local communities, including drivers, logistics and maintenance personnel.
Each bus takes 1.5 to 2.5 hours to charge fully with a cruising range of about 300km (200 miles) on a single charge.
The buses are 12m and 9m models, with passenger capacity of 80 and 50 people respectively.
Each bus has a driver safety cabin, TV, WiFi, security cameras, intelligent transport system, mobile phone charging USB interfaces, access platform for people with disabilities, and "other people centric features".
BYD entered the Colombian market in 2012.
