Chinese Company to Build Electric Buses in Windsor

Remember when all the manufacturing jobs seemed to be going to China? How's this for a role reversal?

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WINDSOR, Ont. -- If things go according to plan, Chinese electric bus company BYD will be opening a manufacturing plant in Windsor, according to a new agreement.

"For the last year, there have been a lot of people courting BYD," Mayor Eddie Francis told The Star on Saturday as he explained the recently inked exclusivity agreement between the city and BYD.

http://www.windsorstar.com/news/6331155.bin
A prototype of the BYD eBus

"Basically, what we're saying is we're engaged. And we have a lot of work to do in the next little while to get to the altar."

The agreement means the company will stop shopping around for a North American municipality to manufacture buses while Transit Windsor puts the vehicles in its fleet and runs pilot tests, the mayor said. The company says the buses will spell huge savings for the city in both fuel and operational costs.

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I hope this happens, and eventually some part of the operations can expand to Detroit.. city leadership should be more active in recruiting foreign-based business to set up shop in Detroit..

More in this in today's Star. Windsor will not only build them, Windsor will showcase them by adding them to their fleet.

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Electric mass transit is an idea whose time has come - again - and Windsor is taking a smart gamble by positioning the city as the experimental hub for the technology in North America.
That's my take on Mayor Eddie Francis's news that the city has a joint venture with BYD Motor Inc. to help market, sell and build the company's vehicles. The Chinese company produces the world's only commercial, batterypowered transit bus.


As you learned here first in this column last year, Mayor Eddie Francis has been struggling mightily to cut a deal with BYD to assemble those buses here from CKD [[complete knock-down) kits for the NAFTA region. Volvo did the same thing with passenger cars until 1998 in Halifax.


Transit Windsor has also agreed to buy several BYD buses and put them in regular service as a kind of open demonstration of the company's products.

The transit board and the city corporation will share duties as gracious hosts to out-oftown transit officials who will be visiting Windsor in droves [[they hope) to kick bus tires and see how the BYD babies perform real-world duties.

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Originally Posted by Hypestyles

I hope this happens, and eventually some part of the operations can expand to Detroit.. city leadership should be more active in recruiting foreign-based business to set up shop in Detroit..

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Sure good idea to be out there -- but much more important to NOT ask the Chinese for their birth certificates to prove that they're black.

WHAT? Don't those idiotic Chinese realize that companies don't put jobs in places that have high taxes, union labor? They're falling for that liberal canard that companies locate in places where workers are well-educated by a state that levies taxes high enough to produce skilled workers! That's crazy! That's HERESY! Those STUPID CHINESE! ARRGGGHHHH!! [head pops off]

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Originally Posted by Detroitnerd

WHAT? Don't those idiotic Chinese realize that companies don't put jobs in places that have high taxes, union labor? They're falling for that liberal canard that companies locate in places where workers are well-educated by a state that levies taxes high enough to produce skilled workers! That's crazy! That's HERESY! Those STUPID CHINESE! ARRGGGHHHH!! [head pops off]

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Ha!

Before your head pops off, consider that things are not what they seem.

They know just what they're doing.

99% of the labor is likely state-unionized in China.

1% will be CAW [[or equivalent greedy corporate entity).

A little local unionized labor to bolt things together will do wonders for their image.