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VDI plan to expand range from three to five BEB models

The tremendous growth story of VDI hit a milestone in 2024, with the brand now preparing to grow its expanding innovative product range in 2025
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From tests to new models and a major presence at the National Bus and Coach Show, Yutong and its Australian distributor Vehicle Dealers International (VDI) had a year full of achievements.

At the back end of 2023, VDI took a beat and planned thoroughly for the year ahead, focusing on new model launches and a strategic approach to competing effectively in the market. This approach resulted in the brand’s best year to date in the Australian bus and coach industry.

“We achieved a 30 per cent market increase by the end of 2024, marking significant year-on-year growth,” VDI national sales manager Sara Clark told ABC. 

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“Our vehicles have been really well received in market and we’ve had a number of wonderful events, while our work in the zero-emissions bus trial space has allowed us to continue growing.”

VDI chief operating officer James Gauci says the plan for 2024 was to continue a “balanced growth agenda” that would facilitate VDI’s forecast increasing delivery volumes. Nestled at the top end of the deliveries table for 2023, Gauci focused on preparing the backend organisation ready to support this significant growth.

“We focused hard across the entire organisations, including our workshops nationally to ensure we were adequately staffed to cope with this growth,” Gauci told ABC. 

“This extended to ensuring sufficient parts supplies to cope with the growth – this growth has been consistent throughout the year, driven by our disciplined and balanced strategy.”

The VDI team at the National Bus and Coach Show in Brisbane

This approach has been rewarded, with VDI being front and centre with its range of Yutong vehicles at the National Bus and Coach Show. After holding its Yutong APAC meeting in Brisbane during the show, VDI also unveiled the E7S model at its stand to revolutionise electric demand responsive transport in Australia. 

Following this, at the BusNSW annual member conference, VDI was honoured as the 2024 Supplier of the Year in New South Wales.

“It was our first recognition with that type of award within the bus industry since VDI’s inception,” Clark says.

“We had so many of our team involved in various initiatives to enhance and transform the Australian market, so it was an honour to be recognised for our work.

“On top of this, a key highlight for the team was participating in the NSW zero-emissions bus regional trials – while challenging, it’s been rewarding to lead and educate in the battery electric bus space.”

All of this occurred in the aftermath of VDI unveiling its Driveable Knock Down (DKD) facility in Brisbane’s Eagle Farm to start 2024, allowing the brand to drive local assembly and continue fulfilling its mammoth order for Transport Canberra. 

“The February opening of our Brisbane facility provided us the opportunity to unite our national leadership team and further refine our 2024 strategy,” Gauci says.

“Pleasingly, we are currently seeking larger premises in NSW, Victoria and WA to support our growth and enhance customer service.” 

Clark says VDI’s growth agenda is a national one, not just focused in one or two states. 

“As our orders increase, so does our need to satisfy customer demand. We now have customer service coordinators in all the states we operate in, providing genuine, customer facing aftersales support,” she says. 

“We’ve received great feedback from our customers about the improved service responsiveness, which in turn helps us refine and enhance our support even further.”

Moving forward, VDI has a range of priorities for the year ahead. With the E7S scheduled to be made fully available to market in the opening months of 2025 and the E12 now having pantograph charging capability, expect to see more Yutong innovation hitting local shores very soon, alongside an increase to its E12 battery size.

“We’re one of the only manufacturers participating in just about all vehicle segments, so we’ll continue increasing our broad range of buses, from the small and mid-size vehicles to the long-distance charter and city buses,” Clark says.

“We have an articulated low-floor city bus coming later on in 2025, and all of our ICE range is Euro 6 compliant. With an excellent supply chain helping us, we’re planning how we can roll out more stock quickly.

“Articulated buses are in high demand, particularly for government-led operations transitioning to electric, so we’re committed to meeting this need.”

Complementing this is an acute focus upon further expanding its national Service Agent network as well as delivering even greater synergies through VDI’s close partnership with Yutong. With the company’s workforce on track to reach 100 employees in under 10 years, VDI’s remarkable growth trajectory appears set to continue in 2025.

“Working closely with Yutong daily enables us to continuously improve vehicle product quality and, very importantly, our customer experience,” Gauci says.

“We’ve focused particularly hard upon Yutong’s global reach and how to best make that available in a meaningful way not only to our customers, but also the broader industry.

“This initiative has driven significant improvements across the board from making parts more readily available to resolving customer concerns faster when they arise.” 

What to look forward to in 2025

With VDI continuing to commit to trials around Australia, there’ll be plenty of scope for VDI to grow in 2025. A key focus for the year, alongside its various releases, will be to increase its local industry content and engagement. 

“We’ve also focused on the quality and value of our industry engagement, especially when it comes to the local assembly of highly reliable zero-emissions buses tailored to Australian conditions,” Gauci says. 

“We’re proud to lead in the battery electric bus space, and we’re focused on expanding our range from three to five BEB models by mid-2025 – an exciting step towards meeting the growing needs of our customers.” 

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