The city bus with no exhaust pipe
NewTech Transport
Deployment
City buses running on batteries, with no exhaust fumes. In China almost every new city bus is electric; elsewhere, price and charging still hold them back.
in greenhouse gases over an electric bus's whole life, battery included, against a same-size diesel bus: World Bank estimate in Shenzhen, where about half the electricity comes from coal.
World Bank - Electrification of Public Transport: A Case Study of the Shenzhen Bus Group (2021) ↗
The pollution, noise and CO₂ of diesel buses running all day among city dwellers.
Every technology has them. A sheet without limits would be a sales pitch.
It took under ten years to go from a few trial buses to a megacity running fully electric.
China launches a ten-city electric vehicle demonstration programme; battery buses are on trial.
PrototypeShenzhen becomes the world's first city whose entire fleet, 16,359 buses, is electric.
DeploymentLithium-ion batteries cost under 140 dollars per kilowatt-hour, a tenth of their 2010 price.
DeploymentNearly 70,000 electric buses sold in 2025: almost all new city buses in China, over 55% in the European Union, about 2% in Brazil. Costlier to buy, over their life they emit about 48% less than diesel in Shenzhen, and 25% less on a coal-heavy grid.
DeploymentEach announced breakthrough, and what it actually delivered afterwards.
At the end of 2017, Shenzhen becomes the world's first city whose entire bus fleet, 16,359 vehicles, runs on electricity. The example travels around the world.
And since?
Growth has spread beyond China: its share of world electric bus sales fell from nearly 100% in 2018 to about 60% in 2025, and Santiago, Chile, has the largest fleet outside China. But US sales fell 40% in 2025, and purchase price still holds back developing countries.