Another 200 E-Buses in Moscow

Drive Electro, Europe’s Biggest Manufacturer of Batteries for Electric Buses Supplied Components for Another 200 E-Buses in Moscow.

Russian manufacturers are expanding production of components for electric vehicles. Thus, engineering company Drive Electro has now produced and supplied 200 sets of propulsion equipment and batteries for Moscow’s fleet of electric buses. It allows Moscow to maintain its leadership among other European cities in the number of electric buses. The company will provide а full maintenance service to ensure the performance of the components and the safety of Moscow’s e-buses.   Most of the batteries and propulsion units for Moscow’s electric bus fleet, which now exceeds 700 vehicles, are manufactured by Drive Electro, with 400 buses currently operating on the company’s batteries. A new batch of components has also been delivered to the company that assembles the city’s electric buses. By the end of the year, the fleet is expected to grow to a record 1,000 buses.   “The growing pace of electrification of the transport sector is resulting in the emergence of an electric transport manufacturing industry in Russia, primarily in the sphere of commercial transport. A substantial contribution to this has been made by Russian developers and manufacturers supplying specific components for electric buses. Government-owned and private Russian companies working in tandem are creating and developing innovative manufacturing capacity. And this, in turn, is generating additional tax revenues, creating new jobs, improving the environment and building a competitive market for electric vehicles. This type of support for private manufacturers by state companies is helping to create advanced vehicles and provide Moscow with the biggest fleet of electric buses in Europe,” says Sergey Ivanov, CEO of Drive Electro. Drive Electro supplies lithium titanate batteries, on which Moscow’s electric buses can travel 350-400 km after re-charging for just 6-10 minutes. In addition, the engineering solutions used enable the electric buses to operate even at record low and high temperatures, which is essential given the Russian capital’s changeable climate. Drive Electro provides full maintenance services for the propulsion system and batteries throughout the buses’ service life, starting from the operational launch of the first model in 2018.   Drive Electro previously announced plans to expand its manufacturing operations. In the first quarter of 2022 the company plans to open its own factory to produce batteries for electric buses and set up serial production of electric trucks. The factory will have a maximum annual capacity of 1,000 battery sets and 500 electric trucks. Investment in the facility will reach 5.2 mln USD. In late 2020, Drive Electro presented the Moskva - Russia’s first electric heavy-duty truck. The vehicle was handed over to the country’s biggest retail network Magnit for trial operation. Drive Electro is also planning to present Russia’s first medium-duty truck in the autumn of 2021.