Hamburg orders electric buses from Irizar, MAN & Volvo

Hamburg public transport operator Verkehrsbetriebe Hamburg-Holstein (VHH) has completed the tender for a further 32 electric buses. The contracts were awarded to Irizar, MAN and Volvo. Delivery of the new vehicles is scheduled to begin at the end of 2021.

These are ten solo and ten articulated buses from MAN (Lion’s City 12E and Lion’s City 18E), eight solo buses from Irizar (ie Bus 12) and four articulated buses from Volvo (7900 EA), according to VHH. This is the first time that Hamburg has ordered electric buses from Irizar and Volvo.

According to the VHH, it currently has 22 electric solo buses, most of which are used by the Bergedorf depot in regular service. In the course of the first half of the year, VHH plans to put 17 more electric solo buses into operation. These are an earlier order of twelve-metre buses from MAN and from the Mercedes subsidiary EvoBus, which supplies the eCitaro as a solo bus to Hamburg. In addition, the first 16 eCitaro articulated buses are to go into service successively at VHH over the next few months.

“The conversion to e-mobility requires a fundamentally different form of operation, in which every process must be questioned and, if necessary, rolled out anew,” says VHH Managing Director Toralf Müller, according to the statement. “Innovative vehicles are an important building block in this process. We work very intensively with all the manufacturers who supply us. We can pay attention to issues like availability and range and push them further together.”

As the Spanish manufacturer Irizar writes in its own statement, VHH have ordered the version with three doors, 30 seats and a wheelchair area. The Hamburg company has apparently dispensed with a fast-charging option, as only the 150-kW charger for the depot was ordered. Nevertheless, there is some flexibility elsewhere when it comes to charging: the Irizar buses will have two charging ports, each located on both sides at the height of the front axle.

According to the Hamburg Senate’s specification, the VHH has only been procuring battery-powered buses for Hamburg since 2020. By 2030, the entire bus fleet is to be converted as far as possible to zero-emission drives.

vhhbus.de (in German), irizar-emobility.com