Munich operator MVG launched eight new Ebusco buses on Monday 5 October, which will convert its route 144 to entirely electric operation, making it the first fully electric service in Munich. The second route is already being planned; line 100 will also run entirely electrically by the end of the year.
Munich’s Mayor Dieter Reiter said: “By electrifying our bus fleet, we are making a major contribution to the fight against air pollution and thus to the quality of life in our city. Our goal is to run our entire timetable on electric buses. Public transport remains a forerunner in the field of environmental protection. We will continue the transition to emission-free public transport at high speed in our bus, tram and metro networks. We need an alternative to the car, and public transport is an efficient and attractive solution for this.”
The new 12m Ebusco 2.2 city buses join four buses delivered to Munich earlier this year. Peter Bijvelds, CEO of Ebusco said: “It is wonderful that our Ebusco buses run a fully electric line through Munich. For us, this proves that the Ebusco 2.2 is a fully-fledged alternative to the traditional diesel bus. Our buses can easily run for up to 300km on a single battery charge. As a result, they only need to charge at night to run their entire service during the day.”
Ingo Wortmann, CEO of MVG added: “Our goal is to convert our bus fleet almost completely to electric buses over the next 10 years and to run them on green electricity. Two fully electric lines are a good start to gain experience. A condition for this sustainable transition is that electric buses are just as efficient as the current diesel buses. They need powerful batteries with a long range. On the other hand, the buses should have enough passenger capacity to be able to operate on our busiest routes. Without these conditions, there will be a lot of extra costs for additional vehicles and drivers to provide the same timetable. There is still a lot of work to be done.”
Another important step in the city’s transition to a fully electric bus fleet is the establishment of the charging infrastructure at the MVG depot in East Munich. This has now been supplemented with 10 additional Ebusco chargers, meaning that 15 buses can be charged at the same time. The total cost of the new buses and charging facilities was around €6m, of which around half was provided by the state of Bavaria.
