Moving toward electrification! STM to test a fully electric standard bus from China

Press release

As part of a technology assessment project carried out with the Société de transport de l’Outaouais (STO), today, the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) will begin testing a fully electric bus on loan from Chinese firm BYD (Build Your Dreams). The standard-size vehicle features distinctive outside markings highlighting the "green" benefits of its technology. Road testing on the streets of Montréal is expected to last until April 2014.

Montréal, December 9, 2013 – As part of a technology assessment project carried out with the Société de transport de l’Outaouais (STO), today, the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) will begin testing a fully electric bus on loan from Chinese firm BYD (Build Your Dreams). The standard-size vehicle features distinctive outside markings highlighting the "green" benefits of its technology. Road testing on the streets of Montréal is expected to last until April 2014.

As announced last June, the STO and STM objective is to measure the vehicle’s performance in terms of energy efficiency and reliability under varying weather conditions and resulting road conditions. The technology assessment project will help determine the autonomy of slow-charging batteries, particularly at colder temperatures in winter.

Coordinated by the Société de gestion et d’acquisition de véhicules de transport (AVT), formed by Québec’s nine transit corporations, the assessment project will benefit all of them as the data gathered and findings will be shared among them.

In its 2020 Strategic Plan, the STM determined it would acquire only electric vehicles as of 2025 (the métro has been 100% electric since 1966), thereby helping to reach the GHG reduction objectives of the Québec government (25%) and the City of Montréal (30%). Several projects aimed at testing different technologies in our operating conditions, while assessing their impact on planning and operability, are already in the works. Of them, two are particularly noteworthy: the creation of a network of dynamic recharging electric buses, inspired by trolleybus technology, the only type of proven electric bus available today that meets our performance standards, with the first vehicles deployed in the Saint-Michel corridor by 2017. Another, Cité Mobilité, a showcase project  in which the STM would operate three standard 12-metre, 100% electric buses made by Nova Bus (fast-charching pre-production model) over a three-year period, from 2016 to 2018 inclusively, with a non-passenger testing phase in 2015.

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Isabelle A. Tremblay
Direction principale – Affaires publiques
Société de transport de Montréal (STM)
Téléphone : (514) 280-4940
isabelle.tremblay@stm.info