There were some big announcements that came from a recent gathering at Pelican Bus and Coach’s showroom in Castleford, West Yorkshire. They included the appointment of a well-known sales man in the industry, a considerable extension to its PCV battery warranties and details of the GT14 diesel coach, among an update on the company’s performance.

Ian Downie, Head of Yutong UK, announced that Steve O’Neill has joined the Yutong supplier this month (October) as an Area Sales Manager, covering the south of England. With considerable sales experience elsewhere in the industry, Steve is also renowned for his leadership at The Kings Ferry. The move sees him leave semi-retirement to take up the full-time role.

Steve takes the place of Phil Hodgson, who retired last month after a 64-year career in the transport industry. Simon Collins, UK Coach Sales Manager, said that Phil thinks highly of Steve. He said: “Steve brings a lot of experience to the company and knows all of the customers. You’ll be able to see him in person at the show.”

Steve’s appointment comes at a time of soaring sales for Pelican, which is about to launch its GT14 diesel coach. The tri-axle will be prepared for PSVAR with the wheelchair lift over the rear axle in the ‘ski locker’ position to retain 11m3 of luggage space.

Pelican is keen to promote Yutong as the ‘world market leader’ with over 10% of the global market share in the bus and coach sector in 2023. It has the largest PSV production facility anywhere in the world and in its home country of China it has been the market leader for 21 consecutive years. It produces up to 60,000 vehicles per year and in any one day, 42 zero-emission vehicles are built. It manufactured its first electric bus in 1999.

Ian Downie, Head of Yutong UK, is also keen to covey the investment Yutong makes in research and development of its vehicles. The manufacturer has a new ten-hectare R&D site with seven different laboratories, including an Environment Simulation Laboratory where factors such as extremes of temperature (-40℃ to 60℃) and elevations of up to 5,000metres can be tested. Ian said: “We don’t test in the market place, we test on the test track.”

Yutong has a long-term R&D investment plan, with annual R&D investment maintained at more than 5% of total revenue, which is over £180m per year. Of its 2,450 R&D engineers, 15 have PhDs and 380 have Masters qualifications.

As well as R&D, another focus of the business is safety. To this end, all of its bus and coach batteries are lithium ion phosphate varieties, considered the safest battery chemistry to use, utilising CATL’s solution. Ian described it as an ‘industry leading chemistry’, noting a number of other manufacturers are now using the same. “It’s nice to see they’re following our lead,” he said.

There is also safety in the stability of Yutong and Pelican, according to Ian. The dealership is privately owned and potentially the oldest commercial vehicle distributor in the country, with 105 years of history. It has been the UK and Ireland sole importer since 2014. Over that decade it has currently sold 720 diesel coaches and 427 electric buses and coaches, a figure expected to rise to 1,500 by the end of 2025.

Growing facilities, growing staff

Helping make these sales, Ian praises the short chain of command at the family-run business, which enables things to be actioned quickly. All sections of the business, including the truck side, are profitable, Ian reports. He is proud to say it has 100% delivery precision.

The company now has three separate sites, including a £1.5m new showroom opened in 2017, a £1.4m parts department that was new in 2022 and a £3m showroom opened last year that is four times bigger than the last site. In 2024, it built an extension to its parts stock holding to bring capacity up to £12m worth of parts.

Pelican is growing its administration workforce and Katrina Hogan, Yutong Aftersales Manager, said the company is actively recruiting engineers. It currently has 22 directly employed technicians and 13 service management and administration staff. The number of engineers is set to rise to 30 by early 2025.

Pelican currently has regional engineers throughout the UK, including those stationed in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, South Wales and London. They are complemented by service dealers and breakdown agents nationwide. Additional support is provided by Yutong engineers stationed around the UK. Its mobile service engineers provide 24/7 service cover. It is a direct agent for DAF, Cummins, Wabco and CATL.

Supporting its aftersales provision, Pelican has £5m-worth of Yutong stock, with over £7m of stock held throughout the group. Katrina said there is much commonality among the parts ranges, with many common components. As well as its expanding warehouse, Pelican also benefits from impress stock held in 15 locations nationwide. It is currently in the process of adding £100,000 worth of parts for the GT12 into a London storage facility.

Its first time parts pick ratio is 96% from its own stock and it provides next day delivery for the UK and Ireland.

Supporting its parts supply, Pelican has additional Yutong stock held in France to support the UK market. The company has also invested in an additional five parts advisors in last

12 months, bringing their number up to ten.

With some Yutongs running on DAF, Pelican is keen to get across that it has been a DAF Dealer for over 30 years and awarded dealer of the year three times. It has over 40 engineers, many of which are master technicians, who can complete warranty work both on and off site. It holds over £1.8m of DAF stock, with overnight delivery from Eindhoven.

A new training centre has been opened by Pelican, which offers IMI Accredited Training courses on High Voltage Levels 1-4 in both light and heavy vehicle, F-Gas and IRTEC. This is not just for Yutong customers. The company has so far trained over 250 candidates with many more courses fully booked throughout 2024. Katrina said: “It’s great to support customers on their journey to deliver zero-emission fleets.”

She notes Pelican can provide training in advance of an electric vehicle order, including delivering an initial vehicle and training on it before it enters service.

Ian said this planned introduction to the vehicles can even include how to use the infrastructure, such as charging equipment: “It’s getting a very positive response.”

Yutong zero-emission bus and coaches on the roads

Firstgroup	169
Stagecoach	161
Nottingham	14
McGills- ScotZEB	42
ScotZEB coaches	45
Reptons	1
Total	427

Every vehicle it sells it plants ten trees in an initiative with Carma Earth, which employs veterans to help plant the trees.

Although Yutong’s vehicles are built in China, Pelican supplies and fits components to them in the UK, including seats, poles, passenger information systems, destination equipment, CCTV and fire suppression systems. PDI and commissioning takes place in the UK too.

Import duty and corporation tax to UK government is paid and profit is retained and reinvested in this country too, Ian emphasised.

Longer E9

Pelican has the first demonstrator of its new E9L electric bus in the UK, which have both had their maximum passenger capacity rise from 55 to 60. The E9L is 9.44m long (above the 8.9m of its E9 sister). Unlike the E9, the E9L has wheelchair access through the front of the bus. The entrance and gangway from the front has been widened slightly to make it easy for wheelchairs to board through the front door. It has a range in year eight of 124 to 186 miles.

The bus can have the Camera Mirror System (CMS) fitted, with Ian reporting just over half of customers opt for the mirror-replacing cameras.

The electric single-decker range includes the E10, a 10.9m bus with up to 35 seats and a range in year eight of between 154 to 186 miles. The E12 is the other electric single-decker, which at 12.17m has up to 39 seats, comes in one or two door variants and has a range in year eight of 154 to 186 miles.

Updated ‘decker

The double-decker in the range, the U11DD, has been upgraded, with the first of the new model having only just arrived in the UK days ago. With a maximum passenger capacity of up to 84 and 70 seats, it has a range in year eight of between 154 to 186 miles.

It has been given a revised lower saloon based on feedback of the previous demonstrator. Stepping onboard the bus, the door to the driver’s cockpit is held closed magnetically, which should reduce rattles. Getting into the cab, Ian demonstrated an electrically operated sunshield, handbrake and steering wheel adjustment, changes based on the work Pelican does with Women in Transport and user feedback.

Steeping through the lower saloon, the updated version does not have the step up in the centre of the aisle, instead opting for a sloped floor. The ceiling of the saloon approaching the backseats has been scalloped to give more headroom. When sitting on the back seats, it is clear there is more room and more attention to comfort than the previous model.

Emphasising the speed with which Yutong can reacto to customer feedback, Ian said that these changes were initially suggested just 3 1/2 months ago.

Stop buttons now light up when pressed onboard to give passengers greater certainty it has been activated. USB ports to each seat are fitted as standard to the Yutong seats, which are upholstered in Camira fabric. The ‘decker has been pre-wired so equipment such as destination displays can be simply plugged in, avoiding any need to cut into interior sections.

The folding seats to the side in the lower deck pull out slightly, a small change to improve comfort.

GT14 coming to the UK

Pelican Bus and Coach is also to bring the Yutong GT14 tri-axle diesel coach to market in 2025.

Simon Collins, UK Coach Sales Manager at Pelican, said the introduction of the model follows the success had with the smaller GT12 coach and the feedback it has had from customers requesting a longer version of that model.

The 14m GT14 is to feature similar characteristics of the GT12 and the same dimensions the electric-powered GTe14. The coach is to be fitted with up to 61 seats as standard.

The GT14 will feature a drop aisle and will have its wheelchair installed over the rear axles, which has been developed with passenger lift manufacturer Hidral Gobel. All GT14s will be PSVAR-prepared, with the lift and destination boards optional. The coach will feature 11 cubic metres of luggage, excluding luggage racks. It will also have a camera monitoring system (CMS) installed as standard, as well as the 360degree camera view designed to assist manoeuvring.

The driveline will be familiar to GT12 owners, being powered by the DAF MX13 at 483bhp (upgraded from the GT12’s MX11) coupled to the ZF EcoLife automatic transmission.

A provisional order from the Yutong factory for ten of the coaches has been made, with two of them already being sold. They are due to arrive in the UK around September or October 2025.

Simon believes that aside from the private hire and touring market, express operators such as FlixBus could be interested in the GT14 and that there could also be a market to those operating airport runs, taking advantage of its generous luggage capacity.

Ian said: “Investing in another diesel coach when other manufacturers are leaving this market demonstrates Yutong’s and Pelican’s power to commit to the UK.”

Coach performance

This year has seen 44 new customers come the West Yorkshire dealership’s way, with 162 registrations in the year to date, including 38 for FlixBus operators. Simon admits a considerable amount of the demand is due to lack of availability of new coaches elsewhere. He said: “But we do have a mature product range now, which is available and the fact Pelican is strong and reliable has generated even more customers.”

Current order bank for Yutong coaches in the UK

68 GT12s

46 TC9s

3 TCe12s

42 GTe14s

The lead time for a GT12 would be seven months, according to Simon, while for a TC9, it would be eight months.

Simon describes the TC9 as a market leading midicoach, saying it ‘feels more like a full-size coach’. He said: “We find one people buy into the TC9, they very quickly buy a second and third.”

There are currently over 400 of the 9.35m TC9s in service. Available with 34 to 37 seats, they have the option of a toilet and are powered by a Cummins 320bhp engine.

Record sales have been made on the 12.25m Yutong GT12 luxury touring coach with 53 seats and toilet. Powered by a DAF 450bhp engine, the vast majority of these vehicles are PSVAR compliant. The GT12 is factory completed for FlixBus, painting the vehicles in the company’s bright green livery, applying its moquette, curtains and the larger water tank requested by the intercity coach operator. They are available nine months from order. Of those ordered for FlixBus, 22 are for McGills, even for Newport Transport, 20 for Belle Vue, eight for Chalfont and 31 are yet to be announced.

The 50-seater TCe12 coach remains popular, with 24 sold in 2023, including repeat orders from Airsym, Wattsway and Swans Travel, as well as orders from new customers for the vehicle Turners Coachways and Grange Travel.

Its larger sister, the GTe14 has had 54 orders from Scottish intercity electric coach operator Ember.

Financial results

Pelican and Yutong are both profitable, Ian stressed, saying the ‘warranty is only as good as the financial stability of the company offering it’.

Pelican’s turnover as of 31 March 2023 was £96.7m, with shareholder funds of £20m and pre-tax profit of £3.07m. All the property it inhabits is freehold. This year, said Richard Crump, Managing Director, sales will be £123m, with a pre-tax profit of £9m

Ian also emphasises Pelican’s long-term partnerships with key suppliers, such as DAF, ZF and CATL.

He also focuses on the levels of diversity and inclusion, in particular the fact 40% of the senior Pelican Yutong management team are female. It has no zero-hour employment, slave labour or imported labour into the UK. Ian says ‘lots of people’ have been with the company for over 25 years, including Simon Collins.

Yutong provides various initiatives such as giving new staff free accommodation for three years, heavily subsidised food and no zero hours contracts.

Battery warranty boost

The Pelican Yutong partnership also continuously invests in technology, including an upcoming boost to its PCV battery warranty. Currently its warranty stands at eight years, 80% state of health (SOH) or 800,000kms. By 2026, this is to be ten-years, 80% SOH or one million kms. As an option, this could be boosted to 15 years, 1.5million kms or 70% SOH.

Show time

For more on Pelican and Yutong, head over to the Euro Bus Expo at the NEC, Birmingham, where visitors can chat to the team and peruse the vehicles on its largest stand to date at the show. Six vehicles are to be shown, including a U11DD for First Bus, an E12 for Stagecoach, an E9L, a GTe14, a GT12 in Anthony’s Travel’s livery and a TC9 for Stanley Travel. There will also be a VR booth, allowing visitors to take a digital tour of the Yutong factory test centre.