Métropole Rouen Normandie orders 10 eCitaro
The public transport provider in the metropolitan region of north-western France, Métropole Rouen Normandie, has ordered ten electric buses from Daimler. The ten eCitaro are to be delivered this summer and the public transport provider will be utilising different battery technologies for the vehicles.
According to Daimler, the order is for eight solo buses with the latest generation of NMC batteries, each with a capacity of 396 kWh, and two additional solo buses with solid-state batteries (capacity 441 kWh). The buses will be charged at the depot in Rouen and have two CCS sockets for this purpose at the front right and at the rear. Fast charging along the route is not planned.
The new solid-state batteries come from France (manufactured by the Bolloré subsidiary Blue Solutions), and have recently seen some problems. In Germany, some models of the eCitaro G (i.e. the 18-metre-long articulated bus variant) had to be taken out of operation a few weeks after delivery in Wiesbaden and Munich. Daimler told our German colleagues at electrive.net that “vehicles of the eCitaro type with solid high-voltage batteries may have an insulation fault in the cell modules”. Due to the insulation fault, a cell short circuit can occur within the battery.
The new customer, Métropole Rouen Normandie, wants to rely on a completely electrified bus network in the future. The region in northwest France consists of the city of Rouen and 70 other predominantly small municipalities. So far, more than 200 buses are on the road in the region. The region, which has a population of around half a million, relies on classic bus lines as well as school bus services, express bus lines, a BRT system, a night bus line, a metro connection and five lines with on-demand transport.
with reporting by Sebastian Schaal, Germany
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