Volvo plans hybrid bus trials in Delhi, Bangalore

Hybrids are in vogue as much in the bus segment as they are in the car space.

Volvo, the leader in the luxury bus segment, is planning to introduce hybrid buses in India.
Akash Passey, managing director, Volvo Bus India, said the company will bring in trial buses to India by the next year and is targeting Delhi and Bangalore for trial runs.

“Delhi has city buses running on CNG and Bangalore is diesel driven. South of India has been very aggressively trying for hybrid buses and Delhi, too, has shown keen interest,” Passey said.

The trial buses will be imported as completely built units and Passey said that as and when the volumes are justified, the buses will be manufactured locally.

Though the import duty has come down from 50% earlier to about 15% now, Volvo is in talks with the urban development ministry to allow it to bring the trial buses without paying any import duty.

Currently, all Volvo buses plying in the country are manufactured locally.

While other commercial vehicle manufacturers such as Tata Motors are also working on developing hybrid buses, Volvo will have the first-mover advantage as globally its hybrid buses are already in commercial use for over a year now.

“While other original equipment manufacturers will have to import key components such as electric motor and battery pack, we already have our things in place and need not look at various options for sourcing as we have a readymade platform,” Passey said.
However, he did not divulge how much would the company save by sourcing from its parent company.

Volvo’s hybrid buses are running in London, Luxembourg, US and also in some parts of Asia, especially China, which has shown keen interest in them.

Although the hybrid buses will cost twice the conventional buses, according to Passey, they will bring about 35% fuel savings as compared with the diesel-run buses. Also, they emit half the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by diesel buses.

“With the technology moving to the next level, hybrids will be a part of the modern bus development and to begin with, the hybrid we will bring to the country will be catering only to the city transport segment,” he said.