UK – In the 2000s, there were three major manufacturers of buses and bus bodies in the United Kingdom: Alexander Dennis of Scotland; Wrightbus of Northern Ireland; and Optare, a relatively young company based in the north of England. For a time, Optare probably accounted for a quarter of the buses and coaches produced in the UK.¹ Optare entered the 2020s under a new name, Switch Mobility Ltd, signalling its intention to embrace the electric era wholeheartedly. However, among the British manufacturers, it remains firmly in third place: according to statistics provided by Switch, it sold 33 buses in 2022, 44 in 2023, and 125 in 2024.² In that same period, Switch’s plant in England has produced more than two hundred vehicles, the vast majority of which were sold to various UK operators, including Stagecoach, Arriva, and many more.

Mahesh Babu, who is CEO of Switch, was candid about the difficulties the company has faced since the British market began its transition to electric vehicles. “Our competitors partnered with Chinese manufacturers and have benefited from the economies of scale which they bring,” Babu told Truck & Bus Builder. During our conversation, I was reminded of an interview we conducted with Dr Andy Palmer three years ago,³ who warned that Britain’s exposure to inexpensive Chinese imports threatened the future of its homegrown bus industry. At that time, Dr Palmer was CEO of Switch; he left at the end of 2022, and Babu took up the leadership role with a plan to make Switch competitive again.

For Switch has an ace up its sleeve which may help it to achieve economies similar to those enjoyed by its competitors: its connection with Ashok Leyland, the Indian commercial vehicle giant which gradually acquired Optare over the course of the 2010s. At the end of 2022, Dheeraj Hinduja, chairman of Ashok Leyland and member of the family-owned conglomerate Hinduja Group, took over the executive chairmanship of Switch from Dr Palmer and steered the company in a new direction. The basic idea is this: to develop a common vehicle platform in India which can be locally adapted for multiple markets, thus achieving economies of scale which would be infeasible for the British company on its own.

Switch has launched two battery electric buses in India: a single decker known as the ‘EiV 12’, and a double decker called the ‘EiV 22’. These are built by Switch, not in Britain but rather at an Ashok Leyland site in Ennore, Tamil Nadu. So far, Switch has already sold more than 1,000 electric buses in India, in addition to more than 500 sales of a light commercial vehicle in India’s 2-3.5t segment, called the ‘IeV’. For the European market, Switch recently launched the ‘e1’, a model first shown at the European Mobility Expo in 2022. I had the pleasure of seeing the production-ready version of the e1 at Switch’s factory in Sherburn in Elmet, where the bus will (initially) be produced. Switch continues to market the ‘Metrocity’ (single deck) and ‘Metrodecker’ (double deck) ranges in Britain. Babu told T&BB that he would like the company to regain its place as one of the top three bus brands in the UK; however, it is apparent that the core of the company’s business has already shifted to India.

Prior to its rebranding, Optare was already heavily involved in electric vehicle development, being an early adopter of modern hybrid and lithium battery-electric technologies in the late 2000s. Today, Babu is very clear about Switch’s place within the larger Ashok Leyland business: it is the spearhead of the group’s electric driveline development and commercialisation. While Ashok Leyland continues to produce conventional bus chassis, Switch’s products are purely electric and will remain so. Although its rationale for acquiring Optare was originally about market expansion, today, Ashok Leyland sees Switch as a vehicle for closer integration between India and Europe, with shared research and development, manufacturing, and procurement across multiple locations.

¹ This is a very approximate estimate based on figures published in the 2010 “World Bus & Coach Industry” report by Truck & Bus Builder. According to those numbers, Optare produced roughly a third of all buses made in the UK in the 2000s; however, these totals do not include Wrightbus, whose production figures were not collected before 2009.

² For comparison, Wrightbus and Alexander Dennis registered 482 and 517 vehicles respectively in 2023 alone; see https://truckandbusbuilder.com/article/2024/03/25/uk-bus-and-coach-market-grew-446-and-led-european-electric-bus-segment-in-2023

³ https://truckandbusbuilder.com/article/2022/04/11/levelling-the-playing-field-interview-with-andy-palmer

The e1

The ‘e1’

First seen by T&BB in prototype at the Euro Bus Expo in 2022, the ‘e1’ has undergone two years of development to reach its production-ready form. It represents Switch’s own take on the conventional low-floor design of the European city bus. It can be specified with two or three doors; the version I saw was a three-door model. The low-floor design is carried through the entire bus, enabled by the use of ZF axles with wheel-hub motors.

In several respects, the e1 is a significant departure from the vehicles which Optare became known for in the 1990s and 2000s. One of Optare’s most successful models was the ‘Solo’ midibus range, which measured no more than ten metres in length. The e1, however, is a twelve-metre bus, placing it firmly in the full-size category. Moreover, the e1 has a fairly uniform specification that suits many European cities; a far cry from the minute variations which Optare had to make, for example, to meet the exacting requirements of Transport for London. Therefore, the e1 is a model that Switch can produce at a relatively large scale for a wide range of customers.

The e1's three-door design

Nevertheless, the new European bus benefits from the legacy of bus bodybuilding expertise which has built up at Switch over many decades. At Sherburn in Elmet, I watched workers building stainless steel frames, much as they have done over the long history of bus manufacturing in Britain. “There is more craftmanship in bus bodybuilding than in any other form of vehicle manufacturing,” the plant manager told me. And through their craftmanship, Switch’s workers have successfully developed one of the lightest electric buses on the European market at 11,400 kilograms, weighing around one tonne less than competing models.

The e1 is powered by battery packs supplied from Europe by American company Microvast. The nickel-manganese-cobalt batteries provide a capacity of 400 kilowatt hours and a range of up to 400 kilometres. These can be fully recharged in less than three hours via charging ports on the front and rear of the bus. At the rear, a service panel allows almost 360 degrees of access to the manual service disconnect and the battery and electrical systems. Switch has tried to make it as safe and easy as possible for a technician to service vehicle; under the floor at the rear, the batteries can be pulled out to make them more accessible. At the front, a wraparound windshield and uncluttered cabin gives the driver a wide and unobstructed field of view.

The e1 is currently made on Switch’s assembly line in Sherburn, in the 12,800-square-metre facility opened by Optare back in 2013. Babu told T&BB that the Sherburn plant has the capacity to produce three hundred electric buses per year on a two-shift pattern. However, the eventual plan is to assemble the e1 in an entirely new facility, to be built on a greenfield site in Spain acquired by Switch over two years ago. Babu said that the construction of the new site on the continent would only begin once demand for the e1 rises towards the 300-per-annum capacity at Sherburn. 

Interior of the e1

Switch’s strategy for India and Europe

In the electric vehicle sector, as in other emerging industries, lean and agile business models and “speed-to-market” are highly valued. But the plan which Babu outlined to me favours the “slow-and-steady” approach instead. When the Spanish plant was first announced in 2022, construction was set to begin imminently to provide a quick entry for Switch into the European market. However, Babu told T&BB that, as of early 2025, the company has yet to break ground at the site, and it is “not in a hurry to do so until more orders are in hand”. The company is initially targeting Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy; two e1 buses are already on the road with a customer in Spain.

At the beginning of 2022, the developing market for electric vehicles in the West appeared to be very lucrative for old and new entrants alike. That has drastically changed in the years between. Back then, Switch announced a total investment of GBP300m in its British and Indian operations in response to the “high expectations” in the market, but only a small portion of the sum (GBP50-60m) has been spent. Furthermore, Switch had originally considered the possibility of selling its Indian eLCV in the European and North American markets, but it decided to wait and see after a market study showed it would be a difficult segment to crack. The company’s cautious approach has been vindicated somewhat; the EV market certainly has not taken off as expected, “as the example of Arrival has shown,” Babu said.

Meanwhile, in India, the move to electric has been more gradual. At the present time, the addressable market for electric buses is limited to large orders from municipalities. However, Babu expects the EV market will continue to grow to about half of the total bus segment in the next decade, which would mean a total volume of 25,000 to 30,000 electric buses per year sold in India. Naturally, Ashok Leyland’s ambition is to be market leader, and it aims to achieve this through Switch.

The balance of Switch’s research and development activities has also shifted decisively towards India. The company opened a new technical centre in Warwick, England which was originally intended to lead its global research and development. However, Switch’s core R&D programmes are now based in India, where it has access to testing facilities owned by its parent, Ashok Leyland. Babu said that the company’s R&D staff in Britain and Spain would focus on local product adaptations and on advanced projects that would be more difficult to undertake in India. For example, Switch is currently assessing “various options and partners” for a self-driving demonstration vehicle which would be developed and tested in Britain.

Already, there is an extensive commonality of design, parts, and technology between the e1 and its Indian counterparts. Babu estimates that the e1’s architecture is 70% identical to that of the EiV range; this includes the software, which was developed in-house. With the next generation of electric buses, Switch aims to bring that figure up to 90%. As for the British market, Switch intends an even closer integration with India, envisaging a “consolidation” of its right-hand drive products. 

Mahesh Babu has worked in the automotive industry for over 25 years, starting his career as a development engineer at Ashok Leyland before moving to a management role at Mahindra & Mahindra. From 2016 to 2021, he led Mahindra’s dedicated EV subsidiary, launching several electric cars on the Indian market. Babu moved back to Ashok Leyland in 2021, serving initially as CEO of Switch Mobility India before taking over as CEO of Switch Mobility Ltd in 2022.