Cape Town’s Golden Arrow Bus Services (GABS) will have 120 BYD electric buses on the road by the end of the year, says company engineer Gideon Neethling.

GABS has already deployed the first 20 buses from China, with the remaining 100 to be phased in as the year progresses.

Whether the bus operator will boost this number further will be a decision for the second half of next year, notes Neethling, at which point the BYD buses would have accumulated three-million kilometres of data.

The electric buses are being charged at GABS’s own facilities, utilising a mix of solar energy and off-peak Eskom tariffs.

GABS has installed 30 charging units, with two charging points each.

The charging facility will be expanded to 60 chargers, with a total of 120 charging points, during the second half of the year.

GABS has 1 200 diesel buses in its fleet (and 1 600 bus drivers), with the idea of electric buses first coming to the fore six years ago.

The 164-year-old GABS subsequently tested two BYD buses on every one of its routes and over each incline possible for a total of 200 000 km.

“There is a rumour electric buses can’t get up Hospital Bend, but that’s not true. These buses fly up there,” says GABS CEO Francois Meyer.

“It’s not easy to make such a big strategic change,” he notes. “We have data on 1 200 diesel buses. We know everything about them.”

“This is a full circle moment for Golden Arrow,” he adds.

“In 1896 we were behind the wheel of the first electric tram in South Africa and now, some 129 years later we are the first commuter bus company to introduce electric buses into service at scale.”

Meyer said the two test vehicles not only showed that electric buses would significantly reduce GABS’s carbon footprint, they also proved the commercial viability of these vehicles.

Neethling describes electric-bus acquisition on this scale as a “bold move”, and an “expensive exercise”, but confirms that “Golden Arrow’s total cost of ownership analysis showed us that it is worth it”.

The BYD people carriers are B12 buses, with similar specifications to the bulk of the current Golden Arrow fleet.

The 12.5-m-long, 65-seater electric buses are equipped with lithium-iron-phosphate batteries and have a range of just more than 200 km.