China’s battery and carmaker BYD announced plans to offer its e6 electric taxi cars for low-cost lease to Hong Kong taxi operators.
BYD said the first batch of 45 e6 electric taxis are scheduled for launch in Hong Kong in May of this year.
BYD plans to lease the e6 electric taxi for a monthly rental fee of just 8,000 Hong Kong dollars (about US$1,000) to taxi operators as part a trial program. By comparison, most cabs that run on liquefied-petroleum-gas engines rent for around HK$21,000 a month.
BYD said it is investing HK$30 million to HK$40 million to set up 45 charging units in various Hong Kong car parks. The company is hoping to boost the number of e6 electric taxis in the city to 1,000 next year and to over 3,000 by 2015.
Along with the globalization of public transport electrification, BYD has got involved in and helped improve the process of electrifying the local transmit systems in the Netherlands, US, Canada, Danmark, Israel, Colombia, UK and so forth. 50 units of BYD e6 have been signed as the first electric cab fleet in London; 49 BYD e6s have been already introduced into Bogota, the capital of Colombia, for the trial operation in the first half year of 2013.
In a related news, BYD unveiled plans for an electric bus fleet in Bogotá, Colombia. The BYD K9 all-electric buses will be placed into trial service as of Q2 2013 in the Colombian capital.
