American schoolbus manufacturers showed off their wares at the first annual Beijing International School Bus Exhibition last week, as Chinese schools look to safer forms of transit for their students.
After a string of tragic accidents involving overcrowded school transport vans, the Chinese government instituted new safety rules, hoping to replace the outmoded vans like the one shown above. It’s a tremendous opportunity for US-based manufacturers, whose vehicles must already meet stringent safety requirements. Among the bus builders in attendance were Blue Bird and Navistar, the latter of which builds about half the buses sold in the US. Both manufacturers announced that they’d signed deals with Chinese manufacturers to build and distribute
“I am more than positive,” Blue Bird CEO Phil Horlock told China Daily. “I see the government is behind it, the people want school buses, they want the business.”
As China’s urban schools are generally regarded as superior to rural ones, parents rely on a makeshift network of school vans to transport their children from small towns to schools in nearby cities. Unfortunately, those van operators don’t always follow safety precautions, which lead to accidents such as a tragic one last year when 21 preschoolers died after their nine-passenger van crashed in Gansu province. In total, 62 children were on board that van.
Such accidents led to new safety rules and a national commission on school bus safety. For example, all buses must have seatbelts by next year and GPS transponders by 2015. Already, local governments have invested in new buses and hired dispatchers to count the number of students who board them. All those rules mean that schools will have to purchase new, larger buses, which were on display at the Beijing exhibit — along with models who might be a more appropriate fit for a boat show.
American manufacturers hope to capitalize on that demand for new buses — which local students call “big nose” buses — although they’ll most likely have to partner with local companies to build and distribute them. According to Blue Bird, shipping costs alone would account for 50 percent of the purcahse price of each vehicle. They’ll also have tough competition locally, where even domestically-built buses only offer a three to five percent profit margin.
One interesting development was Smith Electric Vehicles’ announcement that they’d inked an agreement with Chinese EV component manufacturer Wanxiang. Smith announced their new all-electric bus last November, promising seating for 42, a top speed of 50 mph and a range of 120 miles. On shorter routes, such battery-powered buses make sense: They travel the same routes every day and aren’t used at night, so they can routinely be charged during off-hours.
Photo: Flickr/jaaronfarr
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