Employees work on the batteries of an electric bus at the BYD Coach and Bus factory in Lancaster, California, US. File photo: VCG

The takeoff of bus electrification in Europe would stimulate exports of Chinese new-energy buses over the next few years, a UBS securities analyst said at a press conference on Wednesday in Shanghai. 

"It's a trend for European passenger vehicle manufacturing to shift to low-cost manufacturing areas. Considering that China's bus manufacturing has relatively low costs and that China's new-energy process started quite early compared with many other countries and regions, China has great potential to export new-energy buses to Europe," according to a statement from UBS Securities.

Shen Wei, a car industry analyst at UBS Securities, told the Global Times that some Chinese companies are already making preliminary plans for such exports to Europe.

In April 2018, Germany-based bus company FlixBus opened a long-distance passenger line that used electric buses exported from Chinese bus manufacturing giant Yutong Auto. Denmark bus operator Umove also purchased 20 electric buses from Yutong this April, according to media reports. 

Statistics provided by UBS Securities showed that electric buses (including pure electric and hybrid electric buses) account for 51 percent of China's buses, while 29 percent of European buses and 22 percent of US buses are fuelled, entirely or partly, by electricity. 

"China has outpaced the world in bus electrification, which means that it has a variety of advantages for electric bus exports. For example, China's electric vehicle industrial chain, including the manufacturing of electric motors, controllers and batteries, is complete. Also, electric buses are very reliant upon manual production, where China also has an advantage for its relatively low-cost labor," Shen said. 

At the same time, Europe's bus electrification is also speeding up with the EU's plan for deploying "clean buses." The UBS Securities statistics noted that Europe's electric bus annual sales are expected to reach 8,000 in 2025, compared with 1,000 in 2018. "This rapid demand growth will bring commercial opportunities to Chinese passenger vehicle companies," the company noted. 

Shen also said that compared with Europe, Chinese companies won't have too many chances to enter the US for reasons such as trade friction. 

In 2018, China exported 706 electric buses, up 133 percent year-on-year. That compared with 20-percent growth of new-energy car exports, Chinese customs data showed.