MAN with Efficient Hybrid and gas-fuelled engine in Bologna

Mild hybrid module paired with a CNG-fuelled engine. In Italy MAN Truck & Bus has won the tender for the supply of 40 units of such kind of vehicle to TPER, public transport company of Bologna. The tender saw MAN winning over Mercedes, that offered the Citaro NGT hybrid (93 units of this are operating in Rotterdam’s region).

MAN offered, for the first time, its Lion’s City with Efficient Hybrid module in tandem with the gas engine. The news has been reported on the Italian magazine Autobusweb.

MAN hybrid bus headed to Bologna

The first contract of the tender launched by TPER consists in the supply of six buses. TPER is going to receive very soon also the first LNG-powered intercity buses in Europe.

The choice of the public transport company for gas hybrid buses relies on TPER’s push towards sustainable mobility, an approach linked with a specific Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan. TPER has decided of stop buying diesel buses. And the company has a considerable experience with gas engines (more than 300 CNG buses operate in Bologna) and hybrids (mild ones included).

MAN, here comes the hybrid

The Efficient Hybrid module, consisting of a 6 kW electric motor-generator, developed by MAN together with Nidec, is located between the engine and the gearbox of the Lion’s City. Then, a 48V power line connects it to an inverter, a group of supercaps realized by Eberspacher-Maxwell, a 48V/24V converter dedicated to the onboard equipment.