Solaris Bus & Coach S.A. has delivered two Urbino 12 electric buses to the city of Würzburg, Germany. It is the first delivery performed for the operator NVG Omnibus-Betriebs-GmbH. It is the first time that the customer has opted for battery vehicles. Solaris is also providing the charging infrastructure—two stationary... Read more →

The hydrogen bus Solaris Urbino 12 hydrogen is being tested again in Austria. After successful test runs in Vienna in June, the bus was handed over to the Dr. Richard Group, the largest private bus operator in Austria, which presented the vehicle in St. Pölten on 7 July 2020. The... Read more →

AMPLY Power (earlier post) is managing the charging of electric buses for SolTrans, a public transportation provider for south Solano County, California. Unique to this application, AMPLY is operating its cloud-based software in conjunction with the fueling of SolTrans buses that run on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). Soltran’s Operations and... Read more →

Ballard Power Systems has received a $7.7-million purchase order for membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) for use in manufacturing FCvelocity-9SSL fuel cell stacks from Guangdong Synergy Ballard Hydrogen Power Co., Ltd. (Synergy-Ballard JVCo), a joint venture in which Ballard holds a 10% ownership interest. Ballard FCvelocity-9SSL fuel cell stacks (CNW Group/Ballard... Read more →

The first electric school bus in Poland will carry children to classes in Godzianów near Łódź. The purchase of the electric school bus was subsidized by NFOŚiGW (the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management). Solaris will supply the electric bus to the Municipality of Godzianów in October this... Read more →

New York City Transit Authority has selected BAE Systems to supply 435 electric hybrid power and propulsion systems for its new fleet of transit buses, reducing carbon emissions and fuel consumption. The Series-E systems will be produced at BAE’s manufacturing facilities in Endicott, New York, which provide more than 1,300... Read more →

BYD has completed the delivery of 10 battery-electric K9S buses to Link Transit in Wenatchee, Washington, a milestone for the company as production ramps up following a temporary plant closure in Mid-March from the COVID-19 pandemic. The final two buses of the order were recently delivered, joining the eight others... Read more →

The Orange County Transportation Authority board has approved a draft plan outlining how the agency will convert the OC Bus fleet to 100% zero-emission technology by 2040. OCTA’s zero-emission bus rollout plan will now be submitted to the California Air Resources Board. OCTA has already gradually transitioned its fleet over... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz reports that it already has definitive orders for more than 60 fully-electric eCitaro G articulated buses, with first deliveries slated for later this year. (Earlier post.) Shortly after its market launch, the new articulated bus will be available with new battery technologies. This includes being the first bus in... Read more →

Ballard Power Systems has received follow-on purchase orders for 15 of its 85 kW heavy-duty FCveloCity-HD fuel cell modules from Wrightbus, a leading bus OEM and Ballard partner headquartered in Northern Ireland, to power Fuel Cell Electric Buses (FCEBs) planned for deployment in the UK. Wrightbus was recently re-capitalized by... Read more →

Transdev Canada is investing close to CAD$4.5 million in its fleet of electric school buses with the Québec company Lion, thus becoming, with a total of 31 vehicles, the largest private operator of electric school buses in North America to date. This major investment is made possible by the Québec... Read more →

Transport operator Przedsiębiorstwo Komunikacji Miejskiej (PKM) in Katowice, Poland, has signed a contract for five Solaris Urbino 12 electric buses to be supplied in the second quarter of 2021. . These will join the 10 already commissioned by the capital of Silesia. At the beginning of the year, Solaris supplied... Read more →

StarPower Semiconductor and Cree, Inc. announced that Zhengzhou Yutong Group Co., Ltd. (Yutong Group), a large-scale industrial Chinese manufacturer of commercial vehicles that specializes in electric buses, is using Cree 1200V silicon carbide devices in a StarPower power module for its new, high-efficiency powertrain system for electric buses. The use... Read more →

The US Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announced approximately $130 million in grant selections through the Low- or No-Emission (Low-No) Grant program, which funds the deployment of transit buses and infrastructure for the purchase or lease of zero-emission and low-emission transit buses and supporting facilities. In this... Read more →

Wiener Linien, one of the biggest public transport operators in Europe, has added a hydrogen Solaris bus (earlier post) to its fleet for testing until 12 June. Since the première of the hydrogen bus in June last year, Solaris has been awarded orders from the Netherlands, Germany and Italy for... Read more →

MPK Poznań in Poland has ordered 37 electric buses made by Solaris. The zero-emission vehicles will be delivered in the second half of 2021. The buses will join 21 Solaris electric busesthat have been carrying Poznań residents for a few months now. Thirty-one of the new electric buses are 12-meter... Read more →

Cracow, Poland public transport operator Miejskie Przedsiębiorstwo Komunikacyjne S.A. (MPK) has signed a contract for the purchase of 50 Solaris Urbino 18 electric buses. The new electric buses will expand the existing fleet of 400 Solaris vehicles of varying configurations, cruising the streets of Cracow—including 28 electric buses. The order... Read more →

ITM Power announced the formation of the H2OzBus Project and the signing of a memorandum of understanding with a consortium of strategic partners. The consortium comprises Transit Systems, part of the SeaLink Travel Group; Ballard Power Systems; BOC Limited; Palisade Investment Partners; and ITM Power. The partners have signed a... Read more →

Solaris and the Romanian city of Craiova (Romania’s sixth-largest city) have signed a contract for the delivery of 16 18-meter articulated Urbino 18 electric buses. The articulated vehicles will make it to Craiova in the first half of 2021. The purchase marks the first use of electric buses in the... Read more →

Ebusco will deliver 13 electrical buses to Frankfurt with the Transdev Group in Germany in the end of 2020. The new low floor Ebusco 2.2 buses will be in operation in Frankfurt by Transdev Rhein-Main GmbH under the Alpina brand, which will replace the current diesel buses. The Transdev Group... Read more →

ViriCiti, in collaboration with BAE Systems, has developed a new functionality that enables fleet operators with Series-ER (Electric Range) electric hybrid systems on transit buses to switch the engine on or off automatically in predefined geofenced areas. BAE Systems’ Series-ER all-electric mode is accessible to operators via ViriCiti’s intuitive online... Read more →

Link Transit of Wenatchee, Washington has achieved 50 megawatt-hours of energy delivered wirelessly to its electric bus fleet. Link Transit is the first electric bus operator in the Americas to reach this technology milestone, and the first in the world to do so in under two years. The wireless charging... Read more →

Various manufacturers worldwide already rely on the ZF AxTrax AVE portal axle as an electric drive for buses in public transport. Starting in the third quarter of 2020, ZF’s CeTrax electric central drive will be the second electric drive from ZF for public transport to go into volume production. The... Read more →

MAN is introducing a new 18-meter articulated electric bus this year. The new MAN Lion’s City 18 E electric articulated 18-meter bus will begin testing with customers in Barcelona and Cologne in the second half of 2020. Sales of the 18-meter electric bus started in April. As part of its... Read more →

BYD, Europe’s leading electric bus manufacturer, received an order for a further 13 eBuses from Nobina—the principal bus operator in Sweden and the Nordic region. The new 12-meter models are destined for the town of Piteå in the north-east of Sweden where the new BYD fleet will go into service... Read more →

Hyundai Motor Company is partnering with Incheon International Airport Corporation (IIAC), Air Liquide Korea and Hydrogen Energy Network (HyNet) to establish a hydrogen refueling station for fuel cell electric buses at Incheon Airport’s Terminal 2 by March 2021. Hyundai will support the construction cost of the hydrogen refueling station while... Read more →

The public transport operator in Lublin, Poland has ordered twelve Solaris Urbino 12 electric buses, to be delivered from November 2021 to April 2022. The total value of all the contracts for ordered electric buses with seven charging stations and after-sale servicing exceeds PLN 32 million (US$7.6 million). The contract... Read more →

Arcola Energy Ltd and Optare Group Ltd launched a hydrogen fuel cell double-deck bus product for UK and international markets. With both bus and power system built in the UK, the team believes the new bus will make an important contribution to city air quality and a low carbon economic... Read more →

Ballard Power Systems announced a purchase order from Solaris Bus & Coach S.A. for 20 of Ballard’s new 70 kilowatt heavy-duty FCmove-HD fuel cell modules. These modules will power 20 Solaris Urbino 12 hydrogen buses planned for deployment in South Holland under the Joint Initiative For Hydrogen Vehicles Across Europe... Read more →

Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL), the global leading EV battery manufacturer, is expanding partnerships with VDL Bus & Coach B.V. and Quantron AG to optimize local product solutions and services for commercial vehicle electrification in Europe. The new partnerships are significant to CATL’s overseas strategy in the commercial vehicle... Read more →

Solaris will introduce a 15-meter (49-foot) Urbino electric bus to its portfolio. Up until now, Solaris offered only city buses; the 15-meter version of the Urbino will also meet requirements of inter-city transport. The Urbino 15 LE bus will be certified and offered with specs characteristic for class I vehicles—as... Read more →

Last year, 85.0% of all new medium- and heavy-buses (over 3.5 tonnes) registered in the European Union were fueled by diesel; the market share of gasoline in this segment was close to zero. All alternatively-powered vehicles (APV) combined accounted for 15.0% of the EU bus market in 2019, with electrically-chargeable... Read more →

India’s National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC) is inviting global expressions of interest for the supply of fuel cell buses and cars in India. Specifically, NTPC subsidiary NVVN intends to launch pilot projects with 5 fuel cell buses and 5 fuel cell cars each in Leh and New Delhi in... Read more →

In March 2020, demand for new commercial vehicles fell by 47.3% across the EU, as measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 lead to the closure of dealerships, according to the ACEA (European Automobile Manufacturers Association). Each vehicle segment was strongly affected by the fallout of the COVID-19 outbreak and... Read more →

Orleans Métropole (France) has selected Irizar e-mobility for the supply of 29 Irizar ie tram zero emissions electric buses. The Irizar ie tram is an electric, bus with the appearance of a tram that combines the large capacity, ease of access and internal configuration of a tram with the flexibility... Read more →

The operator Connexxion, providing transport services for South Holland province in The Netherlands, signed a contract for the delivery of 20 Solaris Urbino 12 hydrogen buses. South Holland (Dutch: Zuid-Holland) is the most populous province of The Netherlands, located in its western part, along the North Sea coast. The 20... Read more →

Charging-as-a-service provider AMPLY Power is managing the charging of electric buses for Eastern Contra Costa Transit Authority, which is operating under the name Tri Delta Transit. AMPLY identified 40% of annual energy savings its managed charging software platform could realize, while guaranteeing vehicles were charged and ready to work each... Read more →

Loop Energy, a mobile-power company providing hydrogen-fuel-cell-based solutions for the medium-to-heavy duty vehicle market, has received a purchase order from a leading bus manufacturer in China to support the Nanjing municipal government’s objective of replacing its existing 7,000-unit battery-electric bus fleet with an improved battery-hydrogen hybrid alternative that offers all-season,... Read more →

The Südwestdeutsche Verkehrs-Aktiengesellschaft (SWEG) (Southwest German Transport Company), and Daimler Buses signed a letter of intent to bring the first Mercedes-Benz eCitaro REX with a fuel-cell range extender out of series production onto the road. SWEG is a transport company in southwest Germany that operates railway lines and bus services.... Read more →

The first of 130 Solaris electric buses (earlier post), a Solaris Urbino 18 electric bus, no. 5870, has been deployed in Warsaw. Since the beginning of the year, Warsaw has been delivered electric buses under the contract that Solaris secured in July last year. Each of the 130 articulated, electric... Read more →

New York’s State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) announced that more than $24 million is now available to replace diesel-powered transit buses with new all-electric transit buses. As part of the state’s $127.7-million allocation of the federal Volkswagen Settlement,... Read more →

Solaris has secured another contract for the delivery of electric buses on the Polish market. The city of Bolesławiec has ordered two electric 8.9m buses and two stationary chargers. Worth a gross of nearly 4.8 million PLN (US$1.1 million), the contract will be carried out in February 2021. Two Urbino... Read more →

Solaris Bus & Coach S.A. has ordered 25 of Ballard’s new 70 kilowatt heavy-duty FCmove HD fuel cell modules. These 25 modules will power 15 Solaris Urbino 12 hydrogen buses planned for deployment in Cologne, Germany and 10 Urbino 12 hydrogen buses planned for deployment in Wuppertal, Germany, all under... Read more →

Lane Transit District (LTD) in Oregon has awarded New Flyer a contract for 11 Xcelsior CHARGE battery-electric forty-foot heavy-duty transit buses, including seven ABB depot chargers to support electric bus infrastructure development. The zero-emission bus purchase was supported by Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Low or No- Emission funding. LTD has... Read more →

Coach Atlantic Maritime Bus is the first to test MCI’s first all-electric coach—the MCI D45 CRTe LE CHARGE, designed for long-range express routes—in Canada. MCI D45 CRTe LE CHARGE MCI and Coach Atlantic Maritime Bus will pair for a 9-11 March demonstration tour on Maritime Bus regular routes, inviting passengers... Read more →

California’s Lower-Emission School Bus Program (LESBP) is a grant program that provides funds to purchase new buses to replace old, high-emitting public school buses, and to equip in-use diesel school buses with retrofit devices that significantly reduce toxic particulate matter emissions. The primary goal of the Lower-Emission School Bus Program... Read more →

Highland Electric Transportation has selected Thomas Built Buses Inc.’s Saf-T-Liner C2 Jouley electric school bus powered by Proterra electric vehicle technology (earlier post) and the Proterra 60kW charging system for deployment with the Beverly Public Schools, in Beverly, Massachusetts. The project represents the first all-electric school bus in Beverly and... Read more →

Irizar e-mobility will provide nine 18-meter (59-foot) articulated electric buses to In-de-City-Bus GmbH (ICB) Frankfurt (Germany), in addition to nine interoperable slow charge stations for their garages. With 560 kWh of stored energy and a range of 220 to 250 km (137 to 155 miles), the latest generation of Iriziar... Read more →

BAE Systems has been selected by Alexander Dennis Limited (ADL) and the Republic of Ireland’s National Transport Authority (NTA) to supply up to 600 electric power and propulsion systems for its new fleet of buses in Ireland. The selection includes an initial order for 100 systems. The Series-ER system (earlier... Read more →

The Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District (MTD) has awarded New Flyer a contract for two hydrogen fuel-cell-electric sixty-foot Xcelsior CHARGE H2 heavy-duty transit buses (for a total of four equivalent units). MTD is the first in the US to order 60' hydrogen fuel cell buses commercially. The Xcelsior CHARGE H2 is... Read more →