Germany - Working with ZF Friedrichshafen AG of Friedrichshafen, for installation of its electric drive solutions for buses, e-troFit Bus of Ingolstadt, Germany - a new subsidiary company of engineering development group, in-tech of Munich - is offering operators the chance to move to e-mobility by converting their existing diesel buses into fully operational electric vehicles.

Christine Oertel, media relations for e-troFit, speaking at UITP, said it began with a pilot project back in 2017 with an operator in Landshut converting a diesel-powered city bus, a Mercedes-Benz Citaro first generation vehicle to full electric. Following several conversions thereafter, it started to market its retrofit conversion service at various shows, starting with the bus2bus exhibition in Berlin held in March this year.  This, Oertel claimed resulted in strong interest from operators within Europe as well as around the world and subsequently, this interest has led to contracts being signed with several operators. The first five buses are being commercially retrofitted right now and with ‘serial’ production starting from October. Oertel said this year it would retrofit some 50 units, but as it was already speaking with 100 different customers, it was looking at converting as many as 1,000 units within the next three years.