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Mayor takes new electric bus for a test drive

Maui County Department of Transportation Director Don Medeiros (left, first photo) talks Thursday morning with Mayor Alan Arakawa in front of an electric bus the county is test-driving this week. The bus from Chinese company Build Your Dreams Heavy Industries is 40 feet long, can seat up to 41 people and charges in four hours. Medeiros said the generator being used to charge the bus has only used about 30 gallons of fuel over several days of use. He said the county’s current public buses have 120-gallon tanks that need to be filled every night with an average of 60 gallons of fuel. Build Your Dreams, or BYD, also offers municipalities electric garbage trucks, forklifts and other equipment.

Justin Scalzi, BYD Heavy Industries Regional sales manager, West Coast, (from right, second photo) gives Mayor Alan Arakawa and current mayoral candidate and former Council Member Mike Victorino a tour of the bus Thursday.

The Maui News MATTHEW THAYER photos

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