Ebas

Some other news from the just-concluded IGEM 2014, related to public transport. Parked outside the event at KLCC was a BYD K9 electric bus from AMDAC – the first e-bus in the country has been running trials since last year, and field evaluation has been completed.

Deployment is now set to begin with two customers, Sunway BRT – which has ordered 15 units – and Panorama Melaka, which has placed an order for 40 examples of the e-bus. The latter is involved in tourism-related activities for the state. and the buses will serve as part of its transport fleet.

Some quick notes about the BYD K9 – the 29-seater costs around RM1.4 million per unit, and it will be assembled locally, AMDAC said. A full charge takes about five hours, and the e-bus has an operating range of around 250-300 km on a single charge. The lithium iron phosphate batteries are good for about 6,000 charges, which translates to about 16 years of operating service, charged on a daily basis.

The event also saw AMDAC, a player in the heavy-duty and special purpose vehicle sector, signing a MoU with GreenTech Malaysia, a non-profit organisation operating under the ambit of KeTTHA. The organisation has been tasked with catalysing green tech deployment, and the drive to develop electric mobility solutions isn’t just limited to passenger-based EV projects such as FEN or COMOS.