Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) will purchase 20 BYD battery-electric buses for the Los Angeles International Airport, which will be used for airfield passenger transportation and replace all of its diesel-operated buses. The buses will make up the largest airport fleet of its kind in the U.S., with the vehicles being produced at BYD’s Lancaster, Calif. plant.

The 60-foot articulated buses are the first in their category available in the U.S., according to BYD. The vehicles have an approximate range of 250 miles on a single charge and capacity for up to 120 passengers, depending on their configuration. The fleet is projected to reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions from 308 tons of GHG to zero, or the equivalent to removing 66 conventional passenger vehicles from the road for an entire year.

LAWA’s acquisition of the fleet was approved at a recent meeting of the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners, as a move for LAX to comply with L.A’s “Sustainable City pLAn,” an initiative by Mayor Eric Garcetti to reduce the city’s GHGs to 45% below the 1990 baseline levels by 2025. It also brings LAX a step closer to fulfilling the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Requirement initiated in 2017, the year when the airport’s bus operations transported over 2.4 million passengers on more than 53,000 trips.