12 major cities pledge to only buy all-electric buses starting in 2025

Today, the mayors of 12 major cities pledge to several ambitious targets and initiatives to make their cities “greener, healthier and more prosperous.”

Among those goals, they pledged to only buy all-electric buses starting in 2025.

The initiative is likely to be welcomed in the electric bus industry since it includes some major cities that have important public transit fleets.

London, Paris, Los Angeles, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Quito, Vancouver, Mexico City, Milan, Seattle, Auckland & Cape Town are among the cities who signed the pledge.

Some of those cities already had similar initiatives in place. For example, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro) already made a commitment for its transit to go all-electric by 2030. They recently placed an order for 100 all-electric buses.

London also has several important zero-emission projects to clean its public transit and the general car fleet within the city. They introduced last year their first long-range all-electric double-decker buses.

They also introduced a new program today to reduce the number of diesel cars on their roads.

Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, said:

“I am absolutely committed to tackling the deadly effects of toxic air on Londoners and making London a zero carbon city. That’s why I am incredibly proud that today in London we have introduced the pioneering T-Charge, the toughest emission standard of any city in the world, which will help drive down the number of dirty vehicles polluting our roads and our lungs. We are leading the fight to clean up our filthy air and protect our citizens from the devastating consequences of climate change.

Along with the pledge to buy electric buses, here are a few other initiatives in the agreement, called ‘C40 Fossil-Fuel-Free Streets Declaration’, revealed today:

• Increase rates of walking, cycling and the use of public and shared transport.
• Reduce the number of polluting vehicles on city streets.
• Lead by example by procuring zero emission vehicles for city fleets.
• Collaborate with suppliers, fleet operators and businesses to accelerate the shift to zero emissions vehicles and reduce vehicle miles in cities.

Electrek’s Take

While it is an interesting initiative that is sure to help electric bus makers increase their investments in production capacity, the timeline seems a little too far down the road.

The competition is starting to heat up in the electric bus space. Proterra recently unveiled a new dual motor all-electric drivetrain for buses. Hyundai recently entered the market with an all-electric bus capable of 180 miles of range on a 256 kWh battery pack.

Between them, BYD, Volvo, New Flyer and others, transit agencies have a wide variety of options to convert their fleet to all-electric propulsion and achieve significant gas and maintenance savings.

Proterra’s CEO recently said that electric buses are now cheaper than diesel/CNG. While nothing is stopping cities to add electric buses to their fleet before 2025, it feels like they could be ways to only add electric buses sooner to their fleets.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.