In this blog: The chinese company BYD (Build Your Dreams) won a contract from EC to supply 50 electric taxis.Now officials from the Commission will use electric cars from China, instead of made in EU vehicles, like Renault-Nissan EVs...
There's no shartage of french or japanese electric cars – Renault ZOE and Nissan LEAF in the compact class and Nissan e-NV200 or Renault Kangoo Z.E. as light commercial vehicles (minivans). Yet EC preferred BYD e6!
It's a controversial decision providing European car manufacturers need a hand on their electric mobility efforts and on top of that BYD e6's price is not very competitive, starting at €48,000. E6 however has a very solid advantage as a people carrier – it is superior to LEAF (and much more to ZOE) in terms of rear seat legroom.
BYD's EV also has a significantly larger 60 kWh battery, which according to the company is good for up to 300 km range. So far we haven't came across a single user review to confirm it, but we've seen a video showing e6 having difficulties on a hill climb...
With this e6 contract (there's also e6 taxis in Shenzhen and Amsterdam), BYD secures better and better positions in the race for the public transport electrification. The company is already an early leader in electric bus sales around the world and was even set to produce such near Bulgarian town of Breznik, but this is yet to happen.
For some people It maybe not be a good news the EC decided to get onboard chinese electric taxis, but to us the more important fact here is that the Commission finally shows some more significant commitment to electric mobility. It's China now, but let's see where next set of EC electric taxis will come from.
