After years of getting the product right, King Long and Bus Stop Sales are making their move
Not a trial, not a demo, but the real thing. SkyBus Melbourne Airport has a fleet of King Long electric buses running around the clock, seven days a week. Recently the latest EVolution deliveries went straight into revenue service on one of the most punishing routes in the country and they haven’t yet missed a beat.
“King Long has been in Australia close to 20 years, and globally it’s sold buses in more than 100 countries,” Bus Stop Sales managing director Pete White told ABC.
“In the company’s history, the diesel range came first – school buses and charter coaches earning confidence route by route.
“While the industry raced to get electric models to market, Bus Stop Sales went about it differently, quietly building its aftersales and workshop capability. Then, the electric range came when the support was ready, not before.”
Bus Stop Sales is a well-known Australian family business, with 50 years spent in Australian bus sales. Add in one of the largest dedicated bus facilities in the country, 50 employees and a new support depot in New South Wales, situated in Auburn, and this presence commands power when it comes to supplying bus tenders.
“We walked away from the Canberra tender because local support was not ready,” White says.
“Most distributors would have bid anyway, but Bus Stop would rather miss out than let someone down.”
White isn’t new to the Chinese bus market. Previously he was the country’s largest dealer for another major Chinese OEM and launched their electric buses into some of Australia’s biggest fleets. King Long’s previous distributor approached him three times before he said yes – what got him over the line was a promise to build an Australian-designed bus to the highest spec without cutting corners and to support it through its whole life. It aligns with the way the Whites have done it for 50 years.
The Bus Stop Sales team tells the rest of the story. Head of operations Paul Cartwright came out of lean manufacturing and truck assembly at a major global OEM, while the workshop crew include people from MAN Trucks and Mercedes-Benz. None of them came to Bus Stop Sales for a quiet and peaceful gig.
“Every King Long sold here is built to Bus Stop Sales’ spec – not pulled off a global line,” White says.
“Australian roads, Australian heat, Australian operators. Look underneath and you find ZF axles and transmissions, Cummins engines, WABCO braking, ISRI seats and BOCK compressors.
“Then there’s Spheros or Thermo King air conditioning, a digital VDO or Actia dash where others still run analogue gauges. None of it is proprietary and all is available off the shelf through normal Australian supply chains. That’s the difference between a bus that is cheap to buy and a bus that is cheap to own.
“On the road you feel it – full independent ZF front suspension where others run fixed I-beam axles with Chinese componentry. It’s cheaper to build, but the driver and passengers wear it every shift.”
White says the Cummins X11 engine wasn’t a box-tick either. With plants building Cummins engines at various levels all over the world, King Long completed a Euro 6 analysis. This landed on the X11 due to it being the best quality engine that Cummins make, even at a higher cost.
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The end result is a 400hp engine – nearly 18 per cent more than the 338 that power many other buses. It’s a bigger engine with lower RPM, less fuel, less noise and less strain, all running through a ZF transmission that White says is “as smooth as anything on the road”.
“People assume the best engineering comes out of Europe, but try pricing a mid-life engine replacement on one of those platforms,” White says.
“Two Cummins powertrains are possible for the price of one European replacement, so it’s a no-brainer for fleet operations.”
The EVolution Midi fills another gap, with the nine-metre low-floor electric bus being ideal for routes too tight for a 12-metre option. White says the MU12E turned heads at Busworld Europe last year as a new battery platform with record range.
“European operators traditionally locked in to European manufacturers have since placed volume orders including articulated models now on the line,” he says.
“Buyers who grew up on European product are choosing King Long for the same componentry at a price nobody else can match.”
White is tight-lipped when asked about articulated zero-emissions buses for Australia, but he’s unable to hide the grin.
Outside of this high quality product range, Bus Stop Sales has also expanded its partnership network around Australia’s bus manufacturing scene. Since 2022, Volgren and King Long have been building bodies nationally, while Bus Stop Sales has developed a deep partnership with Express Coach Builders in Macksville along NSW’s Mid North Coast over the years. This affiliation has seen Bus Stop Sales work on the ground alongside Express to train local staff and put more manufacturing jobs into nearby regional towns.
Then there’s across the ditch, where New Zealand’s Global Bus Ventures has built bodies for King Long electric models. Outside of these partners, King Long is ready for local assembly in Australia – White says the platform is designed for it and Bus Stop Sales has the facility and workforce, making it a lucrative option for government procurement orders.
“There are plenty of electric bus brochures doing the rounds, but King Long stands out as it has tested all of its claims,” White says.
“SkyBus runs EVolution electric buses around the clock at Melbourne Airport, while 58 zero-emissions buses on King Long chassis have rolled into Victoria’s Preston depot recently. There’s King Long electric models in Perth, and some on trial in Noosa. It’s all about different states, different weather, but the same job being done by our buses.”
White also points to another metric of success – repeat orders. There’s 14 on contract with one Queensland operator, and more than 70 with another. In Victoria, an operator recently took a 20th into its fleet. While no bus operation is without its challenges, White says Bus Stop Sales is quietly working through the small ones and aiming to deliver excellent aftersales without fanfare to get the job done.
“None of this works without good people. Bus Stop has taken on apprentices across automotive, diesel and auto electrical – mid-career workers and Indigenous Australians coming into the trade,” he says.
“EV training runs out of head office, Auburn handles NSW and the interstate push is underway.”
For decades, the local bus and coach market had its assumptions about products coming from various regions of the world. White says King Long is a key reason why that thought doesn’t hold anymore. With the same European componentry spec’d locally and looked after by people who have done so for years at the highest level, Bus Stop Sales isn’t a compromise nor a cheap option. Instead, White is evolving the brand to become the yardstick for the rest of the market to be measured against.
“World-class componentry, built to our spec, backed by people who answer the phone. That is what we promised and that is what we deliver,” White says.
“Come and have a look for yourself. Walk the facility, drive the bus and talk to the blokes in the workshop. A factory tour on the other side of the world makes for a nice trip, but knowing who picks up the phone at six o’clock on a Friday night is what actually counts.”
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