Unibuss orders nearly 200 all-electric buses from Solaris
Public transport operator Unibuss from Norway has placed a major order with Poland’s bus manufacturer Solaris. Unibuss expects 183 articulated electric buses to arrive in Oslo in spring 2023. For Solaris, it is the largest single order to date.
Previously, the manufacturer’s biggest contract came through Warsaw’s transport company MZA that ordered 130 electric bendy buses in 2019 as reported. The units going to Unibuss in Oslo are of the same type, Urbino 18, and are Solaris’ second-longest model at 18 metres length.
“The residents of Oslo will soon have the opportunity to see it for themselves when travelling on comfortable Urbino 18 electric buses,” underlined Sverre Skaar, Managing Director of Solaris Norge AS. He added that a contract for such a large delivery of e-buses was also “ample proof of the zero-emission revolution becoming reality.”
The same is true for Unibuss. While the company has been working with Solaris since 2006 and has been ordering electric buses from various suppliers for some time, this new contract was the largest in Norway. Said Unibuss CEO Øystein Svendsen: “Unibuss is very pleased with the selection of Solaris as the supplier of the largest bus fleet in any tender in Norway.”
The contract is worth about 100 million euros, according to Solaris.
Unibuss will receive 4th-gen Urbino 18 buses, which Solaris launched in 2017. A central motor with a power of almost 250 kW provides the drive. The Oslo models will also have the latest battery configuration to hold over 500 kW. Unibuss will recharge the fleet via plug-in at the depot – in 2018, Unibuss had asked Heliox to convert its depot to one of the largest charging installations in Europe.
The zero-emission Urbino 18 electric buses will replace older Solaris models in Oslo when they go into operation in April 2023.
The Norwegian carrier has ordered almost 300 vehicles from the manufacturer. All in all, Solaris says it delivered over 500 Solaris Urbino buses to clients in Norway.
Solaris articulated e-buses are also used in cities such as Brussels, Berlin, Barcelona, Warsaw, Cracow, Poznań and Hamburg. Soon, 23 Urbino 18 electric vehicles will also serve the residents of Aarhus in Denmark.
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