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Chinese manufacturer of commercial vehicles

Yutong (officially Zhengzhou Yutong Group Co., Ltd.) is a Chinese manufacturer of commercial vehicles, especially electric buses, headquartered in Zhengzhou, Henan. Yutong also has businesses in construction machinery, real estate, and other investments. As of 2016 it was the largest bus manufacturer in the world by sales volume.

Yutong's origins can be traced to the Zhengzhou Bus Repair Factory, which was established in 1963. In 1993, Zhengzhou Yutong Bus Co., Ltd. was founded with a sales volume of 708 units, and in March 1997, Yutong became the first bus company in China on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The following year, Yutong opened its ¥400 million ($ in 1999) Yutong Industrial Park in Zhengzhou, which was the largest bus factory in Asia at the time. By 2005, Yutong had a 22% market share of buses and coaches across China, becoming China's biggest bus manufacturer, and had won an award for being the best manufacturer in China by the World Bus Alliance. In March, Yutong launched an overseas market strategy and began exporting buses worldwide to markets such as Latin and South America, Asia Pacific and Europe. and in 2014, opened the National Research Center on Electronic Control and Safety Engineering Technology of Electric Buses in conjunction with the Chinese government. In 2015, Yutong conducted the world's first road trials of an autonomous bus, demonstrating self driving technology on a drive on a highway between the cities of Zhengzhou and Kaifeng. As of 2018, in total Yutong had exported more than 64,000 buses and coaches, with nearly 25,000 of these in 2017 being either battery electric or CNG powered.

Zhengzhou Yutong Bus Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Yutong Bus") is a large scale modern manufacturing company specializing in the research and development, manufacturing and sales of bus products. Its main plant is located in the Yutong Industrial Park (宇通工业园) in Guancheng Hui District, Zhengzhou, and covers an area of 1.12 million square meters. The 'New Energy' manufacturing plant of Yutong Bus which was put into operation in 2012, covers an area of over 1.33 million square meters and has an annual production capacity of 30,000 buses and coaches. Yutong Bus also operates a number of complete knock down manufacturing plants worldwide. A manufacturing plant in the western Venezuelan state of Yaracuy was opened in December 2015, and in collaboration with Pakistani heavy vehicle manufacturing company Master Motors, Yutong Bus opened a manufacturing plant at Port Qasim in Karachi in 2016, where buses are manufactured under the brand name Yutong Master. Yutong Bus also plans to open a final assembly plant in Castleford in the United Kingdom, where Yutong buses and coaches are distributed in UK and Ireland through the Pelican Bus and Coach dealership.

Yutong trialled its first autonomous bus in 2015 and has produced a wide range of autonomous models since. Autonomous buses have also been used to transport workers around Yutong's Zhengzhou assembly plant. In June 2021, Yutong claimed to have delivered 100 models of its 10 seat Xiaoyu 2.0 autonomous bus for use in Zhengzhou. The Xiaoyu 2.0 has also been delivered to the cities of Guangzhou, Nanjing, Zhengzhou, Sansha and Changsha, with public trials due to commence in July 2021 in Zhengzhou.

Yutong holds a strong presence in Cuba since entering the Cuban bus market in 2005. That May, Yutong exported 400 buses to the country, which at the time set an export record for a Chinese bus manufacturer. This record was broken in October by an order for 630 buses, then broken again in May 2007 by an export order for 5,348 buses. By 2017, Yutong had sold over 6,000 buses and coaches for service across Cuba. In November 2017, Yutong delivered Cuba's first electric bus, a Yutong E12, which entered service in the country's capital with the Havana Transit Company.

Yutong first entered the United Kingdom bus and coach market in 2014 through supplying diesel powered coaches through Pelican Bus and Coach to independent coach operators. Yutong would become a major supplier of battery electric single deck city buses to operators across England, Scotland and Wales through the Yutong E10 and the longer E12. Both buses are in service with a number of large operators, including McGill's Bus Services, the largest operator of Yutong buses in the United Kingdom, Newport Bus, Cardiff Bus, Go North East, Stagecoach Highlands, First West Yorkshire and Centrebus in Leicester. Yutong's battery electric TCe12 coach has also sold to a small number of coach operators across the United Kingdom, with Ember Core's fleet of TCe12s being used to operate a network of intercity express services across Scotland. Yutong continued to expand its range of battery electric buses for UK operators from 2023 onwards, initially through launching the E9 midibus, with the first examples delivered in early 2023 to Leicester Buses. Two U11DD electric double decker buses, based on similar buses sold in the Chinese and Singaporean markets, entered service as UK market demonstrators in late 2023, while National Express Coaches took delivery of a GTe14 tri axle electric coach for trials on coach services between Victoria Coach Station and London Stansted Airport during March 2024.

Following a trial of a Yutong ZK6772BEV at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, a Yutong E11, Saudi Arabia's first electric city bus, was delivered for service in Jeddah in March 2023, part of the Saudi Vision 2030 framework towards reducing the Kingdom's dependency on oil. 550 diesel powered Yutong C13 PRO coaches for use in Riyadh and on intercity bus routes were subsequently delivered to the Saudi Public Transport Company over the course of 2023, with ten of these allocated to and specially upgraded for transporting members of the House of Saud.

In 2018, the Land Transport Authority of Singapore ordered ten Yutong E12 battery electric single deck buses as well as ten Yutong E12DD electric double decker buses. The Yutong E12s entered with Tower Transit Singapore, Go Ahead Singapore and SMRT Buses in April 2020, while the Yutong E12DDs later entered service in October 2020 with the same operators.

In preparation for the 2022 FIFA World Cup held in Qatar, 888 Yutong battery electric buses, an increase from an initial order of 741 made in 2020, were delivered to state owned bus operator Mowasalat (Karwa). Some of these buses, which operated shuttle services to and from football venues and subway stations over the course of the World Cup, were based in a purpose built bus depot in Lusail that was described as the world's largest, with space to store and charge 478 electric buses, as well as hosting 24 ancillary buildings on the site. Yutong's involvement in the 2022 World Cup was followed by the signing of a memorandum of understanding in April 2023 between Yutong and Mowasalat, with the companies planning to co operate on the development of electric commercial vehicles in Qatar.

168 Yutong ZK6122H9 intercity coaches were delivered to Uzbekistan operator Uzavtoservis in 2019, with the first 100 being delivered by March and the remaining 68 delivered in April. Twenty Yutong ZK6126BEVG battery electric single decker buses, as well as ten battery chargers, were delivered to Uzbekistan's capital Tashkent in February 2022, entering service with the city's bus operator Tosh Shakhar Trans Khizmat. These were followed by 40 Yutong T7 minibuses, delivered to Samarkand in April 2022 in advance of the 2022 SCO summit, which was being held in the city. Yutong received an order for 500 CNG buses and 300 Yuwei E12 battery electric buses for operators across Uzbekistan, the largest export order for the company to date. The first batches of buses from this order began to be delivered from early 2023.

Another core part of the Yutong Group is Yutong Heavy Industries, a manufacturer of construction equipment formed in 2003, and with about 3,500 employees and more than 120 products.