There's still a long way to go towards eliminating Hong Kong's air pollution but two mainland-based makers of electric buses are about to take the city further along the road towards blue skies.
BYD, backed by US investment expert Warren Buffet, and fast-growing Great Dragon - a joint venture between mainland bus maker Yixing and Global Electric Vehicles, owned by locally-listed Dah Chong Hong - have shown keen interest in developing vehicles suitable for Hong Kong.
They believe the city is ideal for developing right-hand-drive vehicles for sale in larger markets such as Britain, Australia and India.
Both companies are set to test-drive pilot vehicles designed with Hong Kong's conditions in mind - more than 10 years after disappointing results from plans to introduce electrically powered vehicles in a city choking on its exhaust fumes.
'We are going to make a perfect bus for the Hong Kong market,' said Paul Lin for BYD, which is carrying out commissioning tests on a bus assembled at its Changsha production plant.
Raymond Lo Yuk-shun, Great Dragon's managing director, said tailoring electric buses to a specific locale was the key to capturing the Hong Kong bus market. 'You just can't have one design to meet all the needs. You have to fine-tune each bus for special needs.'
In 2001, some 14-seat electric minibuses were tested for six months, along with minibuses running on liquified petroleum gas. The electric buses were badly outperformed by the latter. They couldn't travel as far, were difficult to charge, spluttered going uphill and were expensive to maintain.