T
he realisation that the world has to shift away from fossil fuel in an attempt to head off an existential crisis brought on by global
climate change, is something that dawned in Europe well ahead of the more recent change in attitude here in Australia.
For European based bus and truck
makers the need to develop zero emission battery electric buses has been afoot for
some years, and for the VW Traton owned brand, MAN, it has been an imperative.
Locally MAN’s distributor in Australia and
NZ, Penske, has also sharpened its focus to meet the expected rush in demand
particularly, from state transit authorities,
many of whom who have proclaimed some bold targets for de-carbonising their fleets. Significantly, MAN made the massive
decision to give its latest Lion Chassis E LF, fully electric low-floor bus its global
premier at the Sydney Bus Show. It was a massive honour for this country and
emphasizes the fact that Penske Australia and MAN are very serious about getting more of its electric buses on the streets of our major cities.
Penske Australia’s executive general
manager for on-highway, Craig Lee said the move to a battery electric future for our city
buses is the most obvious place to start the journey to zero emission transport.
“I mean in city bus, it’s a no brainer,
along with the refuse and agitator market in trucks, but you go to mainstream zero emission, such as longer distance and
heavy operations and it is just such a long stretch in this country,” said Craig Lee.
Craig Lee headed up an impressive team
from Penske and from MAN in Europe
at the Sydney Bus Expo, including Lutz Siebeling, product management and
body builder development manager, for
MAN Truck and Bus in Germany, Sylvain Messiant, MAN’s head of sales bus
international, Christian Fischer, MAN’s vice president, head of sales management and international key accounts for bus, and of
course Penske Australia’s newly appointed head of bus and coach, Crinel Geaboc,
MAN chose the Sydney Bus Expo at the start of October for the global premiere of its all new Lion Chassis E LF, a fully electric lowfloor chassis city bus, and along with local distributors, Penske Australia, were determined to make a splash at a show that was chock full of new tech. We spoke with some of the key MAN and Penske execs to find out all about the German brand’s strategy for zero emission buses in Australia.
who comes to Penske from Voith and has a vast knowledge of bus and coach.
“We are very proud that we were able
to be together, thanks to the Penske team,
to present our MAN Lion Chassis E LF here for the first time,” said Christian Fischer.
“We had good discussions many months
ago, and so Penske decided it was right to be here at the Sydney show and we
pushed it a lot internally at MAN for sure,” Fischer added with a smile.
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