Iveco Bus to electrify its Annonay plant

Iveco Bus has decided to integrate the production of the electric models Heuliez GX Elec and Iveco E-Way into its French plant in Annonay this year. The models were previously only built at the Rorthais site, also in France. The new E-Way-H2 fuel cell model will also be manufactured in Annonay.

Domenico Nucera, President of Iveco Bus and currently also President of the ACEA Bus and Coach Division, made the announcement at an event on Europe’s industrial strategy in Strasbourg. He said Iveco Bus would “electrify its French historic plant in Annonay this year.”

The production of the two aforementioned battery-electric buses of the Iveco and Heuliez brands has already been decided. However, the production lines will be designed so that the E-Way-H2 hydrogen bus can also be built there. In addition, the site will be equipped with a battery assembly line “allowing Iveco Bus to control its entire value chain to best serve its French and European customers.”

Iveco Bus has five plants in Europe, two each in France (Annonay and Rorthais) and Italy (Brescia and Foggia), and one in Vysoké Myto in the Czech Republic. Over 5,000 people are employed at the sites. Since the separation of the Iveco Group from its former main investor CNH Industrial, the company has also increasingly been offering electric buses.

“Maintaining competitive production in Europe is a challenge but also an opportunity for reindustrialisation,” said Domenico Nucera. “We are rising to the challenge of the energy transition by investing massively in our manufacturing sites in France, as well as in Italy and the Czech Republic.”

Although Iveco emphasised its own projects and plans to invest 600 million euros (including in a new electric bus platform), it also called for the involvement of other players. “Financial support from the States and the European Union will be crucial for this transformation, along with enhanced cooperation with public transport operators,” it said.

ivecogroup.com