Prague orders 14 ebuses from Skoda Electric
Skoda Electric has received an order for fourteen new electric buses from Prague Public Transport. This is the first delivery of e-buses to be carried out by Škoda in cooperation with its Turkish sister company Temsa.
As a note, Škoda Electric (or its parent company Škoda Transportation) does not belong to the Volkswagen Group (that’s Škoda cars), but to the PPF Group of the Czech company Petr Kellner. Like the carmaker Volvo Cars and the commercial vehicle manufacturer Volvo Group or the luxury car brand Rolls-Royce and the eponymous manufacturer of aircraft engines, there is a common origin before paths diverged.
The Škoda E’City buses for the Czech capital are twelve-metre-long low-floor vehicles with a guaranteed battery range of more than 100 kilometres. The bus looks and works almost like a trolleybus but does not charge while in motion. “For the sake of clarity, this means that during the day, when the bus is running, recharging will be done from the existing tram line with the help of a pantograph,” says Zdeněk Majer, Member of the Board of Directors and Senior Vice President for Sales of the Škoda Transportation Group and Member of the Board of Directors of Temsa. This type of charging means the battery-electric range is secondary, as the batteries intercharge during the journey via current collectors with up to 150 kW from the existing streetcar overhead line. The vehicles then recharge by cable overnight in the depot.
In addition to the vehicles’ delivery, the order also includes “possible options,” such as technical support, but also – if desired – the update of the information system or energy management. In the announcement, Škoda Electric puts the order volume at up to 207 million crowns, the equivalent of around eight million euros.
Škoda Electric describes itself as one of the largest bus manufacturers in Europe. It has already delivered more than 14,500 trolleybuses in Germany and abroad.
They have one year to fulfil the order. Škoda said this is the first order for which they will cooperate with its Turkish affiliate Temsa. The company had recently mentioned incoming business from the Czech Republic, coming through its affiliation to the PPF Group to which Škoda Electric belongs. For its part, partner Temsa had introduced two electric bus models in 2019. The company also just started assembling battery packs for its e-buses at its plant in Adana. By 2025, the Turkish manufacturer wants to cover more than half of its bus volume with electric vehicles.
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