On August 18, 2020, Andrii Tsybulko, founder of the Center for Energy Security of Ukraine, visited the Electric Transport Infrastructure 2020: Windows of Opportunity exhibition, where he made a short presentation on the situation with electric buses in Ukraine and possible ways of state support for the domestic manufacturer.
According to my information, today there are at least 3-4 domestic manufacturers in Ukraine that have the ability to launch mass production of electric buses in a short time. There are also two manufacturers that have already made their first prototypes (Lviv-based Electron and Lutsk-based Sunrise)
In addition to the battery, Ukrainian manufacturers can fully produce an electric bus from domestic components (body, chassis, electric motor, control systems).
One of the main obstacles to the mass introduction of electric buses is their high price (1.5-2 times more than conventional buses).
Therefore, to start the transition from "Bogdanchiks" to electric buses, the state needs to plan a mechanism to support their implementation. This may be a special fund in the state budget to co-finance part of the cost of an electric bus, the source of which will be a special excise tax on diesel or gasoline.
The transition to electric buses is not only a matter of urban ecology, development of domestic production, but also a matter of energy security. Today, we import about 85% of diesel, despite the fact that Ukraine has a surplus of electricity generating capacity.