Buses World News

In brief: Worldwide montly news & informations about Buses, Busmakers, Passengers' and the Transport Industry

30.9.11

BUSMAKERS NEWS WORLDWIDE * Brazil - Breakthrough for Scania’s city buses

Sao Paulo,SP,Brazil -Metal Supplu, by Charlotte Stubben -September 26, 2011: -- Now the first units of 200 Scania city buses will start to operate in the South Zone of the City of Rio de Janeiro... The Scania city buses, which shall be operated by the Breda Rio Group, have been designed in order to improve urban mobility in the municipality. The vehicles brings a concept which is completely new in Rio de Janeiro when it comes to urban passenger transport, which is that of focusing on the maximum of comfort and accessibility... The buses to be incorporated into the fleet are of the Scania K 230 4x2 model, with a length of 12.5 metres and a lowered floor, used to facilitate the entry and exit of the passengers. The vehicle has 35 seats and also space reserved for the transport of wheelchair users, and can also hold up to 47 standing passengers...

* USA - Thomas Built Buses roll out redesigned front-engine product

High Point,N.C.,USA -Fleet Owner -Sep 28, 2011: -- Upgrades that include easier access to electrical components and a new engine cover that allows belts and fluid levels to be checked easily are among the changes to Thomas Built Buses front-engine Type D product... The product, formerly known as the EF, will now be called the Saf-T-Liner EFX to reflect the new product, the company said... The redesigned bus will hold up to 90 passengers and includes additional cockpit storage. It is powered by a Cummins ISB diesel engine with SCR technology...

* India - VE commercial vehicles to invest Rs 1,000 crore in 3 years

Mumbai,India -The Economic Times, by Chanchal Pal Chauhan -3 Oct, 2011: -- Maker of Volvo trucks and buses in India will invest 1,000 crore in three years to expand capacity and reach. VE Commercial Vehicles, an equal joint-venture between Delhi-based Eicher Motors Ltd and Volvo Group of Sweden, will focus on fully built buses and heavy trucks to grow its business, its CEO Vinod Aggarwal said . The company will turn India into a Volvo export hub for Middle East, Africa and South East Asian markets besides South Asia...

Labels: busmakers news worldwide

19.9.11

LNG versus GTL * USA - The future truck and bus fuel battle

(Photo, Westport Innovations: Inside Westport's engine assembly plant)

New York,NY,USA -Automotive World (UK), by Alan Bunting -September 19, 2011: -- It was recently announced that Shell had entered into an agreement with Vancouver-based Westport Innovations to promote the wider use of liquefied natural gas (LNG) as an alternative fuel in North America, mainly for commercial vehicles, by helping to consolidate fuel supply and customer support by way of specialised after-sales services... Natural gas as a vehicle fuel, mainly in compressed form (CNG), is already in widespread use, especially in parts of the world adjacent to gas fields. In such situations, the cost of getting the gas, often by pipeline, to the point of use - typically the depot of a large truck or bus fleet - is relatively modest. There are powerful lobby groups such as the Natural Gas Vehicle Association, with astute publicity machines behind them, which have succeeded in boosting the profile of CNG as an automotive fuel. However, its penetration into a market dominated by diesel power remains limited... Moving from diesel to CNG or LNG fuelling usually brings ongoing fuel cost savings. Those savings come not from combustion efficiency improvements - where the diesel continues to reign supreme - but chiefly from more favourable fuel duty levels imposed by national governments keen to encourage NG use, for emission and/or oil import reduction reasons... The main shortcoming of GTL is one of production scale. For it to be competitive in price, production plants requiring investment comparable with that of large oil refineries are needed... But if, as predicted, future global oil price rises outstrip those for NG, then GTL will become a more viable proposition and, crucially, a more practical one when compared with LNG. In a decade or so, competition between LNG and GTL is likely to become a key issue for the truck and bus fuelling business...

Labels: LNG ersus GTL

15.9.11

ELECTRIC BUS SALES * China - BYD to Introduce eBUS Electric Buses in Frankfurt

Frankfurt,Germany -Electric Car News -(originally published) June 15, 2011: -- BYD has signed a Letter of Intent with the city of Frankfurt, Germany to introduce BYD’s all-electric, long-range, eBUS... The City of Frankfurt announced that it was working towards a plan to implement an integrated electric mobility system aligned with public transportation and the utilities companies. BYD will supply three all-electric buses eBUS-12, two DC charging stations and technical support in the first quarter of 2012... These electric buses will be used as shuttles at Frankfurt’s Airport and Public transportation routes to the Gateway Gardens in Frankfurt... BYD eBUS-12 is the longest range eBUS available in the market... The BYD eBUS has been used in Shenzhen and Changsha, China fleets for several months now and is referenced in the recent “BYD Fleet Summary” released April 29th, 2011. 200 units more Ebus-12 will be delivered to the Universiade Shenzhen 2011 by August, 2011...

Labels: buses sales, electric buses

9.9.11

FUEL ECONOMY * UK - Flybus to start testing flywheel hybrid bus

(Photo: The Flybus consortium is testing its prototype flywheel hybrid bus)

London,EN,UK -Gizmag, by Ben Coxworth -September 8, 2011: -- Gas/electric hybrid vehicles tend to be pricier than their conventional counterparts, and many people still worry about the limited range of all-electrics. If you want to move away from purely petrol-powered vehicles, though, is there any alternative? The four-company Flybus consortium would definitely say there is. It recently rigged up a bus with a prototype flywheel-based energy recover system, that stores the energy that would be wasted when the vehicle brakes, then returns that energy to the drivetrain when the bus accelerates. The researchers claim that it could deliver hybrid-like fuel economy, at a fraction of the price... This certainly isn't the first time that flywheels have been used to power buses. The gyroscopic effect of early systems such as those used in the Gyrobus, however, reportedly made the vehicles difficult to handle... Flybus's prototype is currently on display at the Low Carbon Vehicle event in the UK...

Labels: fuel economy

BUSMAKERS NEWS * Germany - Daimler Buses defends its leading position in the bus business

Stuttgart,Germany -Metal Supply, by Charlotte Stubben -September 8, 2011: -- In the first six months of the year, Daimler Buses sold 18,308 Mercedes Benz, Setra, and Orion brand buses and chassis worldwide... During this period, the unit posted revenues of slightly more than €2 billion... In the first half of 2011, the bus markets developed in very different ways. Demand increased appreciably in Latin America, India, and Turkey, leading to substantial market growth. In the key growth market of Brazil, Daimler’s bus division maintained sales at last year’s high level, selling a total of around 8,900 units. That makes Daimler Buses the undisputed market leader in the country, with a market share of over 43 percent... Sales in Mexico even increased by about 27 percent to more than 1,430 units. Daimler Buses posted its highest growth in South America in Argentina, where vehicle sales rose by 24 percent to around 2,000 units. In Turkey, Daimler Buses delivered almost twice as many travel coaches to customers as in the first half of last year, increasing sales to just under 700 units... In full-year 2011, Daimler Buses expects that global demand will primarily come from Latin America, India, and Turkey. At the same time, the bus manufacturer does not yet expect the European market to experience a major rebound...

* Germany - New-generation Citaro handed over to Lücke-Reisen

(Photo: First new Citaro delivered)

Stuttgart,Germany -media Daimler Press Release -21 Sept 2011: ... The best-selling urban bus from Mercedes-Benz has been completely revamped... Lücke-Reisen, based in Nordkirchen, Germany, is the first private bus and coach firm to choose the new-generation Citaro... The designers at Mercedes-Benz have given the urban bus a completely new look, from the headlights to the tail lights... The new Citaro’s redesigned passenger compartment has an even more spacious feel than before. Light colours and an uncluttered ceiling design create an airy and inviting interior... The new Citaro’s safety concept sets the standard. Its protection in the event of head-on collisions is unique among urban buses and is based on the ECE R 29 standard. It has increased passive safety thanks to an even more rigid yet lighter frame structure... Citaro has inherited its predecessor’s tried-and-trusted economical and environmentally-friendly engines with BlueTec diesel technology. Lücke-Reisen’s Citaro is powered by a compact six-cylinder turbo diesel OM 906 hLA with a cubic capacity of 6.37 litres, 210 kW (286 bhp) output and 1120 Nm torque. The engine meets the Euro V emissions standard...

* Germany - MAN Truck & Bus awarded major order from Singapore

(Photo: A MAN low floor bus)
Munich,Germany -Metal Supply, by Charlotte Stubbe -September 6, 2011: -- The bus arm of Singapore transportation operator SMRT has ordered 200 complete buses based on MAN low-floor chassis Type NL 323 F... This bus chassis for a body length of 12 meters is the ideal basis for the south-east Asian island city-state's reliable, high-performing and dynamic local public transport system... Keeping things moving briskly are the six-cylinder diesel engines with an output of 235 kW (320 hp). For particularly effective exhaust-gas management, the engines are equipped with the eco-friendly MAN PM-Kat and thus comply with the Euro V standard... The order is valued in the high double-digit Euro millions. Delivery of the vehicles will be completed by the end of 2012...

* Germany - Two awards for MAN buses in Russia

Munich,Germany -MAN's Press Releases -14 Sept 2011: -- A MAN coach, the Neoplan Cityliner, has been voted "Bus of the Year" at Comtrans 2011, the international commercial-vehicle show in Moscow. With its striking design this vehicle is the best-selling Neoplan model in Russia and has already won the "red dot design award: best of the best". Beside this a jury of specialists and independent experts in Russia singled out the MAN Lion's Regio as the winner in the category "Lowest running costs for buses"... The success is reflected in sales too: in the first eight months of 2011, MAN was once again the leading European importer of commercial vehicles on the Russian market. From January to August 2011 the company delivered a total of 4,282 trucks over 6 tonnes and 152 coaches and intercity buses in the 12 metres and over segment to Russia. The number of units sold in the full year 2011 is set to be about twice as high as in 2010. This makes Russia the second largest market for MAN Truck & Bus after Germany. MAN is currently setting up a truck production plant in St. Petersburg. As early as 2012 a quarter of the trucks sold in Russia are to be produced locally...

* India - JBM Group in talks with foreign firms for bus manufacturing

Chengalpattu,Tamil Nadu,India -Sulekha, by Jayashankar Menon -8 Sept 2011: -- Auto component-maker JBM Group today said it will make a foray into the vehicle manufacturing space through a tie-up with a foreign partner for the launch of buses in India by next fiscal, according to a BS report quoting PTI as saying. The company will join hands with a foreign partner to roll out the product from a new facility to be set up either in North or West India...

* China - Largest bus manufacturer Yutong selects Maxwell ultracaps for diesel-electric hybrid drive system

(Photo: A Yutong Hybrid bus)
Yutong Industry Park,Shibalihe,Zhengzhou,Henan,China -ev-olution.org, by Mike Millikin -12 Sept 2011: -- Zhengzhou Yutong Bus Co., Ltd. (Yutong), China’s largest bus manufacturer, has selected Maxwell ultracapacitors for energy storage and power delivery in diesel-electric hybrid buses that Yutong is producing for public transit agencies worldwide... Yutong’s hybrid drive system incorporates 16 of Maxwell’s 48-volt ultracapacitor modules to support braking energy recuperation and torque assist functions that enable hybrid transit buses to achieve fuel savings and CO2 emission reduction of approximately 25% and reduce particulate emissions by up to 90% compared with conventional diesel buses... Maxwell ultracapacitors are powering some 4,000 hybrid transit buses currently in service worldwide, and are being employed in several other transportation applications, including a stop-start idle elimination system developed by Continental AG for micro hybrid diesel automobiles now being produced by PSA Peugeot Citroen in Europe...

* India - Volvo Buses to invest Rs2bn over next 2 years

(Photo: A air-conditioned Volvo bus, set for roll-out)

Bangalore,India -SACQUIRE MEDIA/Press Trust of India -September 9, 2011: -- Volvo Buses plans to invest more than Rs2bn (US$43.35m) in India over the next two years. This investment will go towards the development of new products, including medium-segment buses... The OEM currently operates only in the high-end bus segment. Its products carry pricetags ranging from Rs7.5m to Rs10m. An entry into India's medium bus segment will pitch Volvo against companies such as Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland... In order to carry out this plan, Volvo Buses intends to expand its manufacturing facility near Bangalore. This facility has sufficient space to facilitate expansion plans, the OEM said... Volvo Buses India expects its sales for the full year to rise to 800 units, up from the 560 buses it managed to sell last year...

Labels: busmakers news worldwide