Verkehrsbetriebe Hamburg-Holstein orders 17 all-electric MAN Lion’s City E

The transport company Verkehrsbetriebe Hamburg-Holstein (VHH) has ordered 17 MAN Lion’s City E buses, which means that MAN Truck & Bus has won one of two tendered lots.

“We're very happy about the order because for us, it's the first large customer delivery of electric buses as part of a tender. It's therefore a significant milestone on the e-mobility roadmap,” said Rudi Kuchta, Head of Product & Sales Bus, as well as Speaker Business Unit Bus at MAN Truck & Bus. “In doing so, VHH is relying on our e-mobility competency even before the start-up of the first MAN field trial vehicle. We'll do everything we can to live up to this trust.”

Delivery of the vehicles will begin in the second half of 2020, and all 17 buses in the VHH design should be delivered to the Hamburg-based transport company by the end of the coming year.

Representatives of VHH and MAN Truck & Bus symbolically signed the contract for the delivery of the 12-metre solobuses at Busworld 2019 in Brussels. There, MAN presented the all-electric Lion's City E and thereby a comprehensive, future-proof overall concept.

“When it comes to getting started with e-mobility, VHH is relying on a reliable electric bus with proven cell and battery technology. On top of that, MAN Transport Solutions offers comprehensive consultation and individual solutions for operation, infrastructure, service and maintenance related to e-mobility,” said Kuchta.

Verkehrsbetriebe Hamburg-Holstein will already receive a test vehicle at the end of December, with which they can gain initial experience in daily use. “With the MAN Lion's City E, we are very clearly setting a course for the mobility of the future - for the benefit of the environment and the people of Hamburg. This is because the modern city buses run entirely without pollutant emissions and are also extremely quiet,” explained VHH Managing Director Toralf Müller.

The Lion's City 12 E is able to fit up to 88 passengers. The omission of the engine tower allowed the seating area in the rear to be optimised and thus for more pleasant lighting conditions, and the addition of up to four extra seating places. The placement of the batteries on the roof provides a solution located away from the rear area, which is at risk in the event of collisions, and makes them easier to access for service work.

MAN uses a central motor on the rear axle to drive its electric bus. In the solobus, the all-electric driveline produces 160 kW up to a maximum of 240 kW. The energy for this comes from the modular batteries with 480 kWh of installed capacity; here, MAN relies on the fully developed battery cell technology from the Group's modular kit. Sophisticated temperature management ensures a particularly good level of availability, regardless of the time of year, allowing MAN to reliably ensure a range of 200 km (and up to 270 km in favourable conditions) over the entire service life of the batteries.

In the coming year, MAN's e-mobility roadmap will see a demo fleet of electric buses consisting of 15 test vehicles in customer deployment in five European countries. For this, MAN entered into innovation partnerships with different operators - including Verkehrsbetriebe Hamburg-Holstein (VHH).