VikingBus Orders 31 Mercedes-Benz eCitaro Buses As Long-Distance Runners In Denmark
Vikingbus, a Danish bus company, has ordered 31 Mercedes-Benz eCitaro all-electric vehicles. These are to be primarily operated in the municipality of Køge, a port city located south of the Danish capital Copenhagen in the east of the island of Sjӕlland.
The city buses are scheduled to enter service at the turn of 2023/2024. Daimler Truck says the 31 eCitaro are equipped with batteries of the latest-generation NMC3 with high energy density and a total capacity of 588 kWh.
The large battery in the buses is necessary to cover longer distances since they will not only operate on the road in Køge itself, but also in the rural areas around the municipality. The regular service also includes routes as far south as Stevn, where the vehicles will cover distances of up to 500 kilometers a day, which is much greater than the typical distances traveled by city buses.
Daimler Truck has not elaborated on the way eCitaro buses will be charged at Vikingbus. The eCitaro is designed for wired CCS charging at the depot, but can optionally also be ordered with various pantograph systems for fast charging along the route.
The 31 zero-emission buses were accompanied by orders for fossil-fueled vehicles from Mercedes-Benz. In addition to the order for the 31 eCitaro, Vikingbus has ordered several Mercedes-Benz Intouro buses with conventional combustion engines for use as school buses in the Jutland region, as well as ten new-generation S 517 HDH-type luxury touring coaches from Setra. Several Intouro and Setra 517 HDH vehicles are also planned to go into service in 2023.
Vikingbus currently operates around 450 city buses, intercity buses, and coaches, as well as 13 nationwide bases. The private company is based on a merger of 17 companies and is fully Danish-owned. The company does not say on its website what proportion of its fleet is electric nor what proportion it is targeting within a given timeframe.
Daimler Buses has said that it will only sell electric city buses from 2030. Daimler Buses plans to launch the first all-electric intercity bus first from 2025 and fuel cell-powered coaches not until the end of this decade.
Martin Daum, CEO of Daimler Truck: “Our independence as Daimler Truck AG provides us with a unique entrepreneurial opportunity. At the same time, this comes with a great deal of responsibility to our employees, to the environment, and to society as a whole. The greatest responsibility for us as a company is dealing with climate change. We are therefore clearly committed to the Paris climate protection agreement. It is our declared goal, as a leading commercial vehicle manufacturer, to bring CO2-neutral solutions for the transport of goods and people to the market.”
“Not everything that the realignment of our sustainable business strategy entails is new to us. We have previously achieved much in terms of sustainability: Our vehicle portfolio already includes electrically powered trucks and buses in all geographic regions – and there will be significantly more in the near future. At the end of 2019, we communicated our goal of exclusively selling CO2-neutral vehicles in North America, Europe, and Japan from 2039 on. We are also making our global production CO2-neutral,” continued Martin Daum.
Source: Daimler Truck
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