JOHOR BHARU: Gemilang International Limited (GML) - an Asia-leading bus and bus body manufacturer, is expected to deliver 140 units of fully-electric school buses to California, USA in 2022.

       GML, a Hong Kong listed company said it has been supplying EV buses to the USA since 2016, while the market was still predominantly using fossil fuel powered vehicles.

       “In fact, GML has been supplying bus bodies for various EV makers such as BYD and CRRC to several markets including Malaysia, Singapore, Australia since 2015, and we expect more countries to catch up with the transition to EV as an increasing number of climate change mitigation commitments have been announced by governments around the globe,” chairman and CEO Pang Chong Yong said in a statement.

       He added that the order of 120 units of 12m-length school buses and 20 units of 7.5m-length school buses was remarkable not just because it was a breakthrough for the US market, but it was also the largest quantity from a single order of EV buses that the company has ever received.

       Pang noted that the EV school bus market in the US is enormous with exponential growth aspect. This is a result of the recently-announced Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) which was signed into law by US President Joe Biden, committing US$2.5bil to buy electric school buses for districts around the US.

       “With the new plan to convert all 500,000 US school buses to zero-emission vehicles, we are confident to capture more market share with our three decades of industry experience as well as our main competitive advantage – aluminium lightweight superstructure,” Pang said.