To date, Yutong has seven units of the hybrid coaches on trial service in Beijing, Guangzhou and Zhengzhou respectively. It is revealed by an engineer in the company that one unit is measuring 13.7 meters long and the other six 12 meters. In the near future, Yutong is planning to roll out an 18-meter model of fuel-electric hybrid coach, the first of its kind in China. Currently, the company has won the bid for Luoyang Electric Bus Demonstration Project.
According to WU Xiaoguang, Assistant Chief Engineer of Yutong, the company now boasts its own New Energy Coach Project Department. Moreover, it has a team of over 50 technical staff members actively involved in development of electronic control, control strategies and electric propulsion.
With an appearance quite the same with other normal buses, the hybrid bus provides more comforts, remarked by some passengers who rode the bus already. LIU Meiju, the driver of the new hybrid bus told our reporter that the bus does not emit a tail of black smoke as most of buses do and its lithium batteries can recharge themselves while the bus is on the move. Moreover, the bus can save about 5 liters of diesel each day on average.