Shenzhen was the first Chinese city to fully electrify its bus fleet. In 2017, the southern Chinese megacity replaced its conventional public buses with more than 16,000 battery-electric buses, creating the world’s first fully electrified urban bus fleet at that scale.
The transition grew from Shenzhen’s early support for electric-vehicle demonstrations, local manufacturing by companies such as BYD, and substantial municipal and national incentives. Building charging depots was just as important as buying buses: the city developed a large network of charging stations and charging points to keep vehicles operating throughout the day.
Shenzhen Bus Group alone reported operating 5,698 pure-electric buses on 352 routes in 2017. The wider city fleet was considerably larger, commonly reported at 16,359 buses. This distinction explains why different sources give different totals while still identifying the same achievement.
The city’s taxis were also electrified soon afterward, but that is a separate milestone. Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing have extensive electric-bus programs, yet Shenzhen is the canonical answer for the first complete citywide bus-fleet conversion.