The Golden Arrow Bus Services has announced a historic purchase agreement with a bus manufacturer for 120 electric buses.
The bus service said it has been conducting intensive testing over the past four years and has achieved its fleet electrification and renewable energy aims by confirming its first bulk order of buses from electric vehicle manufacturer, BYD.
The bus company said the deliveries are scheduled to start later this year, with all buses expected to be operational before December 2025.
Golden Arrow Bus Services and Frontier Transport Holdings’ Chief Executive Officer, Francois Meyer said this order marks a turning point in the bus company’s future trajectory.
“This bulk order confirms our commitment to renewable energy and will also provide us with the larger scale operational data to pave the way towards full fleet electrification,” Meyer said.
To get to this point in the electrification process, Company Engineer Gideon Neethling and his team have been hard at work to ensure that Golden Arrow can optimally implement large-scale fleet electrification.
“We are intensively preparing our workforce and infrastructure to operate a system with complex requirements, and this will involve many exciting future partnerships,” Neethling said.
Golden Arrow has been on a renewable energy journey since 2017 when it conducted a pilot installation of two solar plants of 25kWp each.
In 2020, Golden Arrow Bus Services increased its solar capacity to 2,000 kWp, resulting in carbon-neutral electricity status for two of its facilities.
In the same year, the company partnered with bus manufacturer BYD and uYilo (co-funding) to test two 100% electric buses for 12 months.
In 2021, two BYD electric buses were officially introduced into service – a first for South Africa.
In 2022, Golden Arrow purchased a third BYD bus, a B12 65-seater.
In 2023, a fourth test bus was introduced, and approximately 200,000 km of road testing was completed.
robin.francke@iol.co.za
IOL