Italy: Autoguidovie takes delivery of 120 electric buses from Iveco Bus
Iveco Bus landed a major contract for electric buses from Italy. After winning a tender, the manufacturer will deliver 120 E-Way electric city buses to public transport company Autoguidovie Group.
Deliveries should begin in the second half of 2023. According to Iveco, the Milan-based Autoguidovie Group is Italy’s largest privately owned public transport company. Autoguidovie is primarily active in the regions of Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, for example in and around Milan, Pavia and Cremona. According to the partners, the new electric buses will be “deployed in the various areas served by Autoguidovie.”
Iveco offers its E-Way series of electric buses in four different lengths and with different charging options – such as overnight wired charging or rapid charging via a pantograph. The announcement does not mention which variant Autoguidovie has chosen.
In January, Iveco Bus signed a framework agreement with public transport operator Busitalia for up to 150 electric buses. These will be delivered to several Italian cities between 2023 and 2025. Iveco also signed a framework agreement with Flemish public transport operator De Lijn in January for up to 500 electric buses by 2030.
Iveco Bus is part of the Turin-based Iveco Group, listed on Milan’s Euronext stock exchange. In the summer of 2022, the group announced plans to resume the production of buses in Italy. In the future, the Iveco plant in Foggia will assemble battery and fuel cell buses. Engineering and manufacturing capacities for batteries will be set up in Turin.
Iveco discontinued bus production in Italy in 2011 – at that time, the manufacturer still belonged to Fiat Industrial, which later merged with the Italian-American company CNH Industrial. However, Iveco parted ways with its former parent company in January 2022. The once again independent company plans to assemble buses in Foggia in southern Italy – chassis and frames will not be produced locally, but sourced from other European plants. According to Iveco, the necessary components will be purchased “to a large extent” from Italian suppliers, but Iveco is not naming names.
While this plan was made in the summer but not yet finally decided, Iveco says in the current announcement that it is already “producing low-to-zero-emission buses in a new site soon to be inaugurated in Foggia.”
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