Cutting the carbon FOOTPRINT

Electric buses and trucks are vital for reducing transport emissions, given their significant carbon footprint, but making a transition globally requires investment in better batteries, charging infrastructure, and interim efficiency measures

- KRISHNA GUPTA

Apart from the electrification of passenger cars, it is necessary to have more and more electric buses and trucks on the roads, if greenhouse gas emissions have to fall at a fast rate. This is all the more important because they accounted for almost one-third of carbon dioxide emissions of the transport sector in 2022, even though they account for about 8 per cent of all vehicles in the world.

Electric buses

Electric Buses are mostly those driven by batteries on board. There are some buses that draw power from overhead lines or from the road. Electric buses are being increasingly used in urban transportation and as school buses across the world.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), 50,000 electric buses were sold in 2023, which was about 3 per cent of total bus sales. The total number of electric buses in the world was 635,000 in 2023. China and the EU are leaders in this sector, with India and many South American countries such as Chile, Brazil and Colombia being growing markets. The EU, Germany, Spain, the Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden and Denmark), Finland, Switzerland and Netherlands were the largest consumers of electric buses.