MAN's $583,000 Electric Urban Bus to Test Cities' Spending Plans

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Bloomberg  /  November 15, 2017

Volkswagen AG’s MAN commercial-vehicle division expects its electric city buses, on sale as of 2019, to cost about 2.5 times more than conventionally powered ones, with the difference easing only in the following few years.

MAN SE Chief Executive Officer Joachim Drees’s estimate for the models, giving a price tag of around 500,000 euros (US$583,000) a bus, highlights the struggle for vehicle manufacturers, cities and infrastructure providers to manage spending amid pressure to adopt zero-emission models to reduce pollution. The company predicts that a battery-powered bus’s lifetime cost is likely by 2023 to roughly match figures for combustion-engine versions, Drees said Monday at a briefing in MAN’s hometown of Munich.

“The electric bus will be more expensive up front,” Drees said. “But batteries having a second life, and their rapidly falling prices, will help offset this,” along with savings on fuel and maintenance.

Compared to carmakers, commercial-vehicle manufacturers have been slow to push forward with electric models, because their models carry heavier loads and need large batteries that take up room and increase costs. The broader range of vehicle uses and comparatively smaller numbers sold also make switching to electric versions a tougher undertaking.

Still, a shift to the technology is accelerating as cities take steps to cut pollution and potential competitors emerge, including Tesla Inc. Daimler AG, the owner of the Mercedes-Benz and Freightliner brands, showed off a battery-powered heavy-duty model last month, weeks before electric-auto pioneer Tesla is scheduled to introduce its own truck.

“We’d like to have electric buses as quickly as possible, and as many as possible,” Munich deputy mayor Josef Schmid said at the event. For the southern German city, shifting to electric buses means replacing a fleet of 460 vehicles.

To help push along technology transformation and improve profitability, MAN is investing 400 million euros annually in the five years through 2020 at its commercial vehicle plants in three European Union countries as well as Russia, South Africa, India and Turkey. About 500 million will be spent on electric powering systems in that time, it said. The measures are part of a plan to increase margins across Volkswagen’s truck, bus and van business, including heavy-duty vehicle makers MAN and Scania, to challenge rivals Daimler and Volvo AB.

“By 2025, I don’t expect cities to buy buses anymore that aren’t battery powered,” Drees said.

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MAN selects ABB fast chargers for its e-bus R&D facilities

ABB Press Release  /  September 20, 2016

ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, is supplying fast chargers for depot and opportunity charging of electric buses, to MAN Truck & Bus for its new e-bus R&D facilities in Munich, Germany.

In July MAN Truck & Bus announced serial production of fully electric buses by 2019. Pilots of the e-buses are planned to go into operation in 2018. The buses are developed at MAN’s R&D facilities in Munich, using a test bench equipped with different charging technologies from ABB.

“Energy efficient and sustainable transportation is a key focus area of ABB’s Next Level strategy and we are committed to further advance e-mobility,” says Robert Itschner, Managing Director of ABB’s Power Conversion business unit. “ABB offers different technologies and solutions for electric vehicle charging and we are very pleased that MAN Truck & Bus chose our fast chargers for its test facilities.”

For depot charging tests – used at the terminus where a bus has a longer stop – MAN will use an ABB fast charger with a CCS2 connector at its facility. Following the EU standardization for electric vehicle charging, it is the same connector that is used for electric cars.

For opportunity charging tests, ABB will supply a charge pole with inverted pantograph. With its automated rooftop connection and a typical charge time of three to six minutes, opportunity fast charging systems allow charging at end stops and can easily be integrated in existing bus routes.

The fast-charging solutions are based on IEC 61851-23, the international standard for fast charging electric vehicles. This ensures the appropriate safety systems are in place, the electrical design is in accordance with regulations, and the systems architecture and working principles are supported by a wider automotive community in the future.

Both, ABB and MAN Truck & Bus AG are project partners in the European e-bus charging system (eBusCS) initiative which promotes international standardization of charging processes for electric buses to facilitate the introduction of electric bus systems in European cities.