Summarize：www.chinabuses.org :
Part Three: New energy buses are now gradually popular in tourist bus market. But now, the new energy buses are still not the mainstream bus products in the tourist bus market. The sales volume of the CNG buses is increasing, but the sales volume of the hybrid buses and pure electric buses are now in the declining status.
Table Four: Sales statistics of China tourist buses driven by different fuels in the first five months of 2012
|
|
CNG tourist buses
|
Pure electric tourist buses
|
Hybrid tourist buses
|
Traditional power tourist buses
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Others
|
|
Jan.- May in 2012
|
533
|
11
|
34
|
15989
|
221
|
|
Jan.- May in 2011
|
423
|
23
|
41
|
14297
|
203
|
|
Year-on-year growth
|
26
|
-52.2
|
-17.1
|
11.83
|
8.9
|
Chart Four: Sales statistics of China tourist buses driven by different fuels in the first five months of 2012
From above data, it is seen that
In the first five months of 2012, it sells 16,788 units of tourist buses. The new energy buses account for nearly 3.44 precent of the total sales of tourist buses. Most of them are CNG buses and a few are hybrid buses and pure electric buses.
Compared to the sales growth rate of the first five months in 2011, the new energy bus' sales growth in the tourist bus market is nearly 0.24 percent.The sales of the CNG buses in Jan.- May 2012, is the main force to push the sales growth of the new energy bus, which rises 26 percent higher from Jan.-May 2011. However, the sales volume of the pure electric buses and hybrid buses are all decreasing, which restrain the sales of the new energy buses in Jan.-May 2012.
According to the market research, as we know, the natural gas is rich in Sichuan Province, Chongqing Province etc., so the new energy buses, especially CNG buses are suitable for the these areas' tourist bus market and become the popular bus products. However, for the hybrid buses and the pure electric buses, at this moment, they are impossible to become the main bus products in the tourist bus market. The main reasons are following:
In tourist bus market, the new energy buses are required to travel from one city to another city. So the runing mileage of the new energy buses should be above 300 kilometers. But at present, the new energy vehicles, especially the main models -- pure electric buses, its running mileage are below 300 kilometers.
What is more, all kinds of new energy vehicles are driven by different types of powers, so there exists this or that kinds of problems, such as:
(1) The buses with hydrogen fuel cells as power could make the bus be zero emissions and high efficiency. But its manufacturing costs and maintaining cost are very high. Besides, it is not convenient to add fuel, and the supporting facilities is not perfected.
(2) The hybrid buses have some advantages such as high efficiency, convenient fuel supplementary, strong cruising ability and the perfect facilities. But due to the high costs of both the manufacturing and maintenance together with its own weight and fuel supplementary, the users also have to choose carefully.
(3) Pure electric buses have the highest energy efficiency with zero emissions, but manufacturing and maintain costs are also high. Due to the characters of the new energy buses, such as poor power, short running mileage and not perfect of the charging or facilities , the pure electric vehicle at present are only suitable for driving in the designed lines and regional tourism operation lines. And they are not suitable for inter-city passenger travel market.
