This now extends Loop’s footprint beyond South Korea, Italy and Australia and now into Poland. The company calculates that its fuel cells are being used in 12,000 buses, a number that is only growing.

T&BB spoke to Lind, who is Senior Vice President and Head of Bus and Coach at Scania, at the UITP Global Public Transport Summit in Barcelona, Spain earlier this month.

The existing plant size has been expanded by about a third and now covers 41 hectares: the extension comprises a 32,000-square-metre hall for cab production and a 10,000-square-metre hall for truck modification and final assembly.

Bus body production will be gradually wound down in the first quarter of 2024, and the part of the plant where the bodies are made will be closed down.

Alongside the 100,000-milestone announcement, MAN said it is now offering a rear-wheel drive option with single tyres and automatic transmission, targeted especially to customers requesting a special body on the chassis.

Phillips Europe is a relatively new manufacturing operation for the US CV connector specialist, having bought Fortech Poland LLC, a manufacturer and distributor of quality 24v electrical connectors and cables for commercial vehicles in June 2018. The harness kits are part of a growing portfolio of products being developed for the European truck and semi-trailer market.

Rebus Regionalbus Rostock, a public transport operator serving the Rostock district in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, has ordered 47 ‘Urbino 12 hydrogen’ buses and 5 ‘Urbino 18 hydrogen’ articulated buses.

Volvo Buses plans to wrap up its operations in Wrocław by the end of the first quarter of 2024, affecting 1,600 jobs.

The proportion of vehicles sold with electric, hydrogen and hybrid drives increased from 41% to over half (55% - 823 versus 669 units with internal combustion engines), marking the first time in the company’s history that buses with alternative drives have outsold conventional ones. 

The vehicles will be powered by BAE Systems’ third generation Series-E full hybrid drivetrain, consisting of a 250kW electric traction motor, a 150kW Euro 6 combustion engine, and a 1kWh ultracapacitor energy storage system.

Stadtwerke Aschaffenberg Verkehrs has acquired 12 buses in total, ten of which are ‘Urbino 12 hydrogen’ models, while the remaining two are ‘Urbino 18 hydrogen’ articulated buses.

The new building covers a surface area of 10,000m2 in the immediate vicinity of the company’s main factory, providing greater storage space for the parts and components Solaris requires to assemble its buses and trolleybuses.