Ashok Leyland builds electric bus plant in India
According to a company statement, the new plant is being built on an area of around 28 hectares in Lucknow, the capital of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The foundation stone was laid recently. Although Ashok Leyland intends to focus primarily on the production of electric buses there, it says that vehicles with conventional or other alternative fuels could also be produced on site. The Indian commercial vehicle manufacturer plans to start with an initial production capacity of 2,500 buses per year in Lucknow. Over the course of the decade, the aim is to expand this to 5,000 vehicles per year.
The market for electric buses has great potential in India. The Economic Times reported earlier this year, citing high-ranking government sources, that India wants to replace more than a third of the country’s diesel bus fleet with buses with electric drives by 2030. The plan will be for both state transport companies and private operators, as well as buses transporting schoolchildren and employees.
Ashok Leyland’s subsidiary Switch Mobility scored a number of electric bus orders in the past year. In 2022, partnered with JSW to introduce electric buses for employee transportation in India. Also in 2022, it presented the first all-electric double-decker bus for the Indian market and secured an order for 200 of the latter for the city of Mumbai.
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