Gemilang International Limited (GML) will deliver 140 units of fully-electric school buses to California in 2022. Based in Johor, Malaysia, GML has designed and manufactured coaches and assembled buses for more than 30 years. Its notable projects recently include the Iskandar Malaysia Bus Rapid Transit, Sarawak’s first electric city bus for Kuching Metro, and an electric bus pilot project by the Sabah government for public transport.

GML has also been supplying aluminum buses for Go KL, Rapid KL, Rapid Penang and MRT feeder buses for the last 13 years.

The Hong-Kong-listed company said it has been supplying electric buses to the US since 2016.

In fact, GML has been supplying bus bodies for various EV makers such as BYD and CRRC to several markets including Malaysia, Singapore, Australia since 2015, and we expect more countries to catch up with the transition to EV as an increasing number of climate change mitigation commitments have been announced by governments around the globe.

—Pang Chong Yong, Chairman and CEO

Pang added that the order of 120 units of 12m school buses and 20 units of 7.5m school buses was remarkable not just because it was a breakthrough for the US market, but it is also the largest quantity from a single order of electric buses that the company has ever received.

Pang noted that the EV school bus market in the US is enormous with an exponential growth aspect. This is a result of the recently enacted Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which is committing $2.5 billion to buy electric school buses for districts around the US.

With the new plan to convert all 500,000 US school buses to zero-emission vehicles, we are confident to capture more market share with our three of industry experience as well as our main competitive advantage—aluminum lightweight superstructure.

—Pang Chong Yong