A new, broad measure of “energy transition investment”, compiled by BloombergNEF (BNEF), shows that the world committed a record $501.3 billion to decarbonization in 2020, beating the previous year by 9% despite the economic disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. BNEF’s analysis shows that companies, governments and households invested $303.5... Read more →

Autobus Groupe Séguin, a transportation operator headquartered in Laval, Québec, has ordered 60 LionC electric school buses over a five-year period. Autobus Séguin will integrate the all-electric buses into the company’s current fleet of vehicles, one of the largest in Québec. This order is the single largest to date in... Read more →

Ekoenergetyka-Polska has won a tender issued by RATP—a state-owned public transport operator and maintainer headquartered in Paris—and is implementing one of the largest contracts for charging infrastructure for electric buses in Europe. Ekoenergetyka-Polska will deliver 274 devices of 90 kW each. The charging stations for two Paris depots—Center Bus de... Read more →

Denmark leads the way when it comes to putting zero-emission urban buses on the streets in Europe, with 78% of new vehicles being electric, according to the latest data from green NGO Transport & Environment. In Luxembourg and the Netherlands about two-thirds of new buses were zero-emissions. T&E said other... Read more →

Brasov, Romania has ordered 25 Solaris Trollino 18 trolleybuses. Solaris will supply the articulated, low-floor and zero-emission trolleybuses to the customer within 12 months. The value of the contract amounts to about €19 million. In July 2020, Solaris completed deliveries under an earlier order for 26 vehicles of this type.... Read more →

Moscow-based NPP ITELMA, a leading developer and manufacturer of vehicle and transportation electronics, has presented a full powertrain system for electric bus manufacturers. The system will also make it possible to upfit any modern bus to an electric bus, the company said. The developers promise to reduce energy consumption of... Read more →

The Port Authority of Allegheny County (PAAC), headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has converted options to order six more forty-foot battery-electric Xcelsior CHARGE heavy-duty transit buses from New Flyer. The purchase, supported by Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Low or No Emission (Low-No) Grant Program funds, will replace end-of-life diesel vehicles with... Read more →

Octillion Power Systems, a global provider of advanced lithium-ion batteries, is providing battery packs for all-electric motorcoaches and city transit buses offered by ABC Companies and Lightning eMotors. The order marks the company’s first time supplying batteries for motorcoaches and buses in North America. With its entry into the motorcoach... Read more →

Bus manufacturer Solaris has joined the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance, an initiative led by the European Commission. The aim of the Alliance is to scale-up, by 2030, the production and deployment of hydrogen as a fuel produced by means of low-emission technologies and renewable energy sources. The European Clean Hydrogen... Read more →

BYD has exclusively won cumulative orders to supply 1,002 battery-electric buses to the capital of Colombia, Bogotá. (Earlier post.) This tender was open to all bus technologies. This is the largest order for pure-electric buses outside of China to date, which sets a new record in sales volume for the... Read more →

A consortium comprising Solaris Bus & Coach, Impact Clean Power Technology S.A. and TAURON Polska Energia will implement a project titled “Second Life ESS” with the aim to create a prototype system to store electric energy based on retired electric bus batteries. The project is being co-financed by the National... Read more →

New Flyer Industries Canada ULC and New Flyer of America Inc., subsidiaries of NFI Group Inc., one of the world’s leading independent global bus manufacturers, announced the successful completion of a battery recycling pilot with North America’s largest lithium-ion battery recycler, Li- Cycle Corporation. (Earlier post.) Li-Cycle offers a proprietary,... Read more →

Order marks MARTA’s first electric bus purchase from New Flyer, joins over 40 North American agencies with active zero-emission bus programs supported by New Flyer New Flyer of America Inc. announced that the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) has awarded New Flyer with a new order for six Xcelsior... Read more →

Lightning eMotors, a leading provider of commercial electric vehicles for fleets, announced a $45-million order for its zero-emission powertrain systems from Faribault, Minnesota-based motorcoach supplier ABC Companies. The first zero-emission motorcoach was delivered in December. The T2145e electric motor coach undergoing final testing in Colorado. The order includes a mix... Read more →

BYD won an order to deliver another 406 battery-electric buses to the Colombian capital of Bogotá, coming shortly after a previous announcement on 17 December of the delivery of the 470 pure electric buses to the city. (Earlier post.) BYD will co-work with Superpolo, a Colombian bus manufacturer, on the... Read more →

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a series of initiatives to increase the number of electric buses in New York. Specifically, this effort includes $16.4 million in incentives for the expansion of electric bus usage amongst public transportation authorities, as well as $2.5 million for school bus operators to acquire... Read more →

Solaris has completed the delivery of 90 Urbino 12 electric buses for Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG). This was one of the biggest contracts for battery-powered buses in Europe and the largest one for the manufacturer in Germany so far. Berlin now has a total of 123 electric Solaris buses in its... Read more →

The American Bus Association (ABA) has released motorcoach industry closure data gathered from the Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). The data collected by FMCSA shows a surge in losses of authority for motorcoach operators in 2020, which means these companies are no longer providing transportation—in some... Read more →

Van Hool, an independent Belgian manufacturer of buses, coaches and industrial vehicles, has shipped the first CX45E, a 100% battery electric coach, to the US. After an intense period of development and testing, the CX45E is now being commercially launched by Van Hool’s North American exclusive distributor ABC Bus Companies... Read more →

The Lion Electric Company (Lion), a manufacturer of purpose-built all-electric medium and heavy-duty urban vehicles, has delivered 10 battery-electric LionC school buses to the Twin Rivers Unified School District in Sacramento, California. With these new buses, Twin Rivers is now operating the largest zero-emission school bus fleet in North America,... Read more →

Bremen’s public transport provider Bremer Straßenbahn AG (BSAG) has ordered five new Mercedes-Benz eCitaro electric buses equipped with solid-state batteries. Delivery of the locally emission-free eCitaro buses will take place in early 2022. The batteries combine a very high energy density with a particularly long service life. Seven battery packs... Read more →

Toyota Caetano Portugal (TCAP), the joint venture of Toyota Motor Europe (TME) and Salvador Caetano, strengthened its strategic alliance with CaetanoBus and Finlog by becoming the direct shareholder of the two Portuguese companies. The enhanced strategic alliance with bus manufacturing and sales company CaetanoBus, and Finlog, a passenger car financial... Read more →

BYD has begun delivery of Europe’s largest single order for electric buses to Keolis Nederland BV, the Dutch subsidiary of global public transport provider, Keolis. An initial 246 BYD low-floor eBuses—part of a total order for 259 vehicles —are now with Keolis Nederland and entered service on 13 December on... Read more →

Ballard Power Systems announced a purchase order from Van Hool, a leading bus OEM and Ballard partner headquartered in Belgium, for 10 fuel cell modules to power Van Hool A330 buses to be deployed in Emmen, the Netherlands, under the JIVE2 funding program. Van Hool A330 Fuel Cell Buses powered... Read more →

In August this year, Hamburger Hochbahn, one of the biggest public transport operators in Germany, announced a list of potential suppliers of 530 electric buses. (Earlier post.) The vehicles are to join the fleet in Hamburg between 2021 and 2025. As one of the three selected potential suppliers, Solaris has... Read more →

Nuvve Corporation, a leader in vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology, and IoTecha Corp., a provider of electric vehicle (EV) smart charging technology, are joining forces to deploy and commercialize a bidirectional charging solution for electric vehicles with the Combined Charging Standard (CCS) plugs supporting the ISO/IEC15118 protocol. This approach allows automotive OEMs... Read more →

Proterra has opened a new battery production line co-located in its EV bus manufacturing facility in Los Angeles County. The new battery production line will manufacture Proterra’s battery packs featuring next-generation cells. The facility will expand Proterra’s battery production capacity to meet growing demand for the company’s battery systems in... Read more →

Con Edison has begun using the batteries on five Lion Electric electric school buses to provide power to its customers, marking the first time in New York State that electricity has flowed from buses into a utility’s grid. Con Edison and its partners have begun sending power from the bus... Read more →

The first zero-emissions electric school buses in the state of Texas were recently received by Everman Independent School District. The three buses, manufactured by Blue Bird Corporation, started transporting students this school year. Blue Bird’s electric school buses produce zero emissions, and have fewer parts when compared with a diesel... Read more →

Nobina Sverige AB, Scandinavia’s largest bus operator, has placed an order with MAN Truck & Bus for 22 MAN Lion’s City E buses. (Earlier post.) The buses will enter service in Malmö. Following on from the order for 17 fully electric MAN Lion’s City E buses placed by the Hamburg-Holstein... Read more →

The electric Solaris Urbino bus will be tested on the streets of Athens over the next two months by public operator OSY. The capital city of Greece conducts trials on electric technology in regular passenger traffic to prepare for the growing electrification of its public transport system. In the next... Read more →

Testing electrified and autonomous vehicles in public passenger transit is the goal of the RABus collaboration project. In the cities of Mannheim and Friedrichshafen, RABus self-driving buses will be tested in regular urban road traffic. Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) will accompany project work by studying demand, acceptance,... Read more →

Researchers from London South Bank University (LSBU), School of the Built Environment and Architecture, are investigating the use of metal hydrides to absorb, release and store hydrogen for fuel cell buses. The LSBU project aims to deliver: Improved safety with hydrogen stored at lower pressures in smaller cylinders on buses... Read more →

At the beginning of October, series production for battery-electric city buses started successfully at the MAN plant in Starachowice, Poland, beginning with the Lion’s City E in the 12-meter solo version. The first customer vehicles are now rolling off the assembly line for the Hamburg Holstein transport company (VHH). The... Read more →

Operator Transdev has signed a contract with Solaris Bus & Coach to supply two hydrogen buses. The vehicles will roll out onto the streets of the Swedish city of Sandviken in autumn 2021. Solaris Urbino CNG (in yellow and red), operating X-Trafik Gävle—the hydrogen buses in Sandviken will have the... Read more →

Solaris has delivered an electric Urbino 12 school bus to the commune of Gręboszów in Poland. The purchase of the eco-friendly vehicle was subsidized by the NFOŚiGW (the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management) as part of the “Kangaroo: A Safe and Environmentally Friendly Way to School” program.... Read more →

Ebusco, supplier of electric buses & chargers and Rocsys, supplier of EV charging automation, will provide a fully automated charging solution at bus depots. The innovative Rocsys robotics solution ensures that the CCS plug of the depot charger is plugged into the bus automatically and 100% correctly. As a part... Read more →

Proterra announced that Broward County Transit (BCT) has agreed to purchase 12 40-foot Proterra ZX5 battery-electric transit buses with 660 kWh of onboard energy and the DuoPower drivetrain. With Broward County’s purchase, Proterra has now sold more than 1,000 battery-electric transit buses in North America. Introduced in September, the Proterra... Read more →

Nuvve Corporation, a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology company, and Lion Electric, an original equipment manufacturer of all-electric heavy-duty vehicles based in Québec, are collaborating to launch vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology as a standard feature of Lion’s zero-emission school buses. Lion recently launched LionA, an all-electric mini school bus, on top of an... Read more →

Broader collaboration among key stakeholders and a new generation of finance solutions will be needed to electrify trucks and buses at scale by 2050, according to a report released today by Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), MJ Bradley and Vivid Economics. To ensure and accelerate the transition, we must move beyond... Read more →

ElringKlinger AG and the Dutch vehicle manufacturer VDL Bus & Coach BV have agreed on a strategic partnership for the development and industrialization of fuel cell stacks and systems for mobile and stationary applications. ElringKlinger AG will focus on the customer-specific development and production of fuel cell stacks. VDL will... Read more →

Moscow, Russia has launched its 500th electric bus—a KAMAZ 6282 electric bus. The KAMAZ 6282 uses lithium-titanate batteries, and has a range of 70 km on one charge. The electric bus is charged in 6-12 minutes with ultrafast charging stations using a half-pantograph. In addition, an on-board charger allows charging... Read more →

START Bus, a public transit system serving Jackson and Teton County, Wyoming, and nearby areas and Proterra unveiled the community’s first of eight Proterra ZX5 battery-electric transit buses. The buses are the first battery-electric buses in Wyoming and first Proterra ZX5 buses (earlier post) to be deployed in the United... Read more →

The Milanese operator ATM has ordered another 100 electric buses from Solaris, via a framework contract signed last year. The first batch of 40 Urbino electric buses under the same contract has been already delivered. Solaris is to deliver the newly ordered 100 vehicles to Milan in the first half... Read more →

AMPLY Power and AECOM have announced a strategic partnership to help bus fleet owners address and accelerate their zero-emission initiatives. By combining AMPLY’s operational expertise and Charging-as-a-Service technology with AECOM’s specialization in large-scale transportation and utility projects, the partnership provides transit agencies with a turnkey approach to optimize their infrastructure... Read more →

Battery experts TWAICE and leading telematics company ViriCiti are partnering to deliver comprehensive battery analytics for electric bus fleets. The TWAICE predictive analytics software will be available as a Battery Health add-on module to approximately 3000 electric buses connected to ViriCiti’s platform. The software will generate insights into e-bus battery... Read more →

ABC Companies, a leading provider to the motorcoach, transit and specialty passenger transportation market in the United States and Canada, will soon be the first to offer a motorcoach-diesel-to-electric-repower program for North American operators. Together with Lightning eMotors, formerly known as Lightning Systems, the partners have created a five-step process... Read more →

In its fight against COVID-19 and for the protection of bus occupants, Daimler Buses is relying on a high fresh air content, a fast exchange of air and anti-viral high-performance particle filters in its vehicles. The effectiveness of these protective measures has been confirmed by a research report issued by... Read more →

The Munich Traffic Association (MVG) has deployed 8 new Ebusco buses. From now on, line 144 will be driven entirely electrically with these buses—his is the first fully electric line in Munich. The second line is already on its way; line 100 will also run entirely electrically by the end... Read more →

Solaris and Kiepe Electric are the winning bidders in a tender held by operator Stadtwerke Solingen GmbH (SWS) in Germany. Solaris will deliver 16 Trollino 12 electric trolleybuses. Including previous deliveries, a total of 36 Solaris Trollino trolleybuses will be deployed on the streets of Solingen. In line with the... Read more →