TIANJIN - A fleet of 500 electric buses hit the roads Wednesday in Tianjin, a major industrial city in North China.

The buses, the result of a joint venture between Tianjin Bus Group and Shenzhen-based carmaker BYD, have a range of more than 200 kilometers following a full charge, said Wang Deqi from the bus group, adding that it is enough for a bus to run its daily route.

The group on Wednesday also opened a charging station, capable of serving 80 buses at the same time and 448 buses in a day. It has been touted as the largest charging station in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Tianjin now has 3,220 clean energy buses. Among them, 1,346 are powered by electricity, Wang said.

China pins hope on clean energy to reduce its dependence on coal, which has been linked to the winter smog in northern China. The current smog has lingered on since Dec 31 and is not expected to disperse until Jan 6. Tianjin is among the cities with the poorest air quality.

Since 2010, the city has built 201 charging stations and 2,769 charging points to encourage the use of clean energy transport.