MAN Truck & Bus Announces Plan To Offer eBus Chassis Globally
MAN Truck & Bus recently announced it plans to offer its eBus chassis, the basis for the Lion’s City E, to the global market. The electric buses are already in operation in several European countries with over 1,000 orders to date. Prototypes for the eBus chassis are expected to be delivered in 2023 with series production starting in 2024.
As governments and consumers around the world seek solutions to climate change, much focus has been put on carbon emissions, to which gas-powered vehicles are a large contributor. Alternatives, such as electric vehicles, are increasingly popular. Demand for electric buses, which offer zero emissions and reduce the number of vehicles on the road, is expected to rise and make up over 80% of the global market by 2040. The eBus chassis will be manufactured in Starachowice, Poland, at the same plant where MAN produces the Lion’s City E.
"To meet this demand and make an important contribution in terms of sustainable mobility, we are now offering the MAN electric bus solution for international markets outside Europe with our eBus chassis," says MAN Truck & Bus Head of Business Unit Bus Rudi Kuchta. "With the chassis, we are giving bodybuilders from all over the world the perfect basis for their fully electric models."
About The eBus Chassis
The chassis will be offered in a two-axle low-floor, low-entry intracity version and a high-floor intercity bus. It will also be available in both left- and right-hand drive.
"To ensure that the eBus chassis can be used everywhere, it will be available as a left- and right-hand drive variant," says Barbaros Oktay, head of Bus Engineering at MAN Truck & Bus. "This is particularly interesting for countries where left-handed traffic prevails and MAN buses already dominate the road scene. These include Singapore, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, among others."
The eBus chassis utilises the same technology as the Lion’s City E with the electric central motor on the rear axle and Volkswagen Group’s battery technology. To meet the varying requirements of different companies around the world for daily range, total mileage, and costs, MAN is using both NMC (lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt battery) technology, as it does for the Lion’s City E, and LFP (lithium-ferro phosphate battery) technology.
"Thanks to this technology, which has already proven itself in the field, and our many years of experience in chassis technology, we can offer our customers an innovative and efficient eMobility solution for urban and intercity transport," says Oktay. "Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for all our customers to get started with electromobility. And we can do this with a product that is safe, reliable, has a long range and is extremely flexible."
About The MAN Lion’s City E
The electric bus has a range of up to 350 kilometres (217 miles) on a single battery charge, according to use, and can capture additional energy with regenerative braking. The Lion’s City E comes in a 12-metre (39-foot) solo version and an 18-m (59-ft) articulated bus with 480- and 640-kilowatt-hour batteries, respectively. The electric central motor is rated for 160-kW continuous output on the solo bus and 267-kW on the articulated model.
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Source: MAN