E Pushpak

Gold Stone - BYD 's Electric Bus on trial with TSRTC Greater Hyderabad Zone

With  funds made available under National Mission on Electric Mobility (FAME), Major state transport undertakings are planning to try and switch at least a part of the fleet to cleaner electric fuel. Cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore and Mumbai are expected to add a few electric buses to their fleet. In fact, Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC)' board, which successfully tested a BYD electric bus 2 years ago has passed a resolution to buy 150 buses. These buses cost more than 2 crore a unit. Hence, citing lack of funds, BMTC has decided to ask for funding under the FAME scheme. It has to be seen how this process goes through. BYD, a Chinese company which earlier supplied an imported unit from China to be used in Bangalore for test, has now entered in to a partnership with Gold Stone, a Hyderabad based infrastructure company to assemble and supply the buses in Inida to bring down the costs. Gold Stone has now supplied its first bus assembled in India to Telangana State Road Transport Corporation - Greater Hyderabad Zone (TSRTC-GHZ) to test the bus.

The bus arrived in Hyderabad in the last week of February and was planned to be launched along with a larger lot of inter city buses. Although, owing to the MLC Election code which is in force, the idea of launching it with fanfare was dropped. We were surprised to see the bus serving as a Pushpak - a service dedicated to transport people to and from the Airport. A2 starts  at Jubilee Bus Stand and terminates at the Airport picking up passengers at Secretariat and  Mehedipatnam . This bus follows the routes 5K and 251 . 

More on this bus very soon !    

Pictures and Text by 

Revanth Chowdary