The BYD K11M all-electric 60-foot articulated bus, produced in California, is the first in its category to complete Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA) Altoona safety tests.
The detailed results of various tests conducted over several months in 2019 (service-life category of 12 year / 500,000 miles) are available in pdf here.
The Chinese manufacturer boasts that the K11M performed really well (the aggregate score was 83.3) with only minor issues.
- Safety—Parking brake's ability to hold on a 20% grade
- Reliability—No Class 1 Malfunctions
- Performance—Acceleration, gradeability, top speed
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Passing all the required tests is important to simply exist on the market:
"Bus models that fail to meet one or more minimum performance standards will “fail” their test and thus be ineligible for purchase with FTA funds until the failures are resolved and validated through further testing. FTA will use this authority to make sure defects are corrected before a bus model can be acquired with FTA funding."
According to the document, the bus is equipped with a huge 642 kWh battery pack (578 kWh usable) for about 200 miles (320 km) of range. The force to move forward comes from two 150 kW electric motors (total 300 kW).
