Ready for urban transport of the future: MAN at the 2019 UITP Summit

• MAN Lion’s City E: the future is electrifying
• Even more efficient and environmentally friendly: MAN city buses with diesel, natural gas and hybrid drive
• With comprehensive consultation, MAN Transport Solutions paves the way to e-mobility for transport operators

The volume of traffic in cities is growing. Urban mobility is changing and, in the process, politics, city planners and transport operators are facing increasingly large and complex challenges. Future-proof solutions are needed here – especially when it comes to passenger transport. The MAN Lion’s City is the answer to the pressing questions posed by these challenges. MAN offers efficient and climate-friendly mobility solutions for urban transport with its new generation of city buses; they are also tailored to the requirements of the individual customer and demands of the market.

“Our new generation of city buses means MAN is ready for the future! The new MAN Lion’s City is a comprehensive vehicle concept for different drive types, featuring new diesel and gas engines, which, when combined with the MAN EfficientHybrid module, can become even more efficient and environmentally friendly. These new city buses have been successfully rolling off the series production assembly lines since the beginning of May,” said Rudi Kuchta, Head of Product & Sales Bus and Speaker Business Area Bus at MAN Truck & Bus. “We consistently designed the new city bus based on the requirements of future technologies right from the first design sketches. It was also based on the fully electric drive, which we introduced with the MAN Lion’s City E at the IAA 2018, and which we are now showcasing at the UITP Summit in Stockholm. We will be delivering our eBus for the first time to customers in 2019.”

MAN Lion’s City E: the future is electrifying

The fully electric MAN Lion’s City E rounds off MAN’s new generation of city buses as the emission-free version. The distinctiveness of the electric drive is emphasised with a design which has been changed slightly. The eBus is clearly recognisable, particularly due to the extra rear seating places created by omitting the engine tower. The fully electric driveline produces 160 kW up to a maximum 270 kW, allowing the Lion’s City E to reliably ensure a range of 200 km over the entire service life of the batteries. Three electrically powered doors allow access into the interior of the solobus, which features 29 seats.

As part of the e-mobility roadmap, an eBus demo fleet will be launched in five European countries in 2020, and undergo multiple field trials in order to test their suitability for daily use. As part of this, MAN has entered innovation partnerships with various European operators. These include Hamburger Hochbahn and the Verkehrsbetriebe Hamburg-Holstein (VHH) transport operators, the municipal authorities in Munich and Wolfsburg, as well as the Luxembourgian company, Voyages Emile Weber. The first series-produced vehicles of the MAN Lion’s City E will then be delivered to customers in the second half of 2020.

Diesel version even more efficient with D15 engine and MAN EfficientHybrid

With a clear focus on efficiency, driving comfort, technology and design, the developers of the new generation of city buses took on the task of setting new standards for all components. The diesel version’s new driveline also embodies this with a new, lighter D1556 LOH engine that already meets the Euro 6d emissions standard, which is to come into effect from 1 September 2019. The highly efficient 9-litre engine is available in the power levels 280, 330 and 360 hp, perfectly covering the typical application fields of city buses. The internal combustion engine can also optionally be supplemented with MAN EfficientHybrid, a system that significantly reduces fuel consumption and emissions. In doing so, the series-standard stop-start function of the MAN EfficientHybrid provides extremely quiet stop phases at bus stops and traffic lights. In the overall concept of the new MAN Lion’s City, consumption is lowered by up to 16 percent as a result of the combination of the D15 engine, the MAN EfficientHybrid module and the weight reduction of the city bus.

MAN Lion’s City G continues the success story for gas drives

As market and technology leader in the gas-driven city bus segment in Europe, MAN has expanded its city bus range with a gas variant. The MAN Lion’s City G features an entirely redeveloped E18 engine series. Compared to the previous model, the gas engine offers a higher level of torque at lower displacement, thereby being more powerful and compact at the same time. Just as the diesel variant, the MAN Lion’s City G is also available with the MAN EfficientHybrid. Especially when combined with the optional hybrid solution, an environmentally friendly vehicle with utmost efficiency is created for city environments. A vehicle which fits into the current work processes without limitations. In the event of an operator relying on biogas, the gas-fuelled bus presents the most economically and environmentally sensible solution for a virtually carbon-neutral public transport system. An overall concept which impresses – as demonstrated by the awards won by the MAN Lion’s City G in the innovation award from the German gas sector (Innovationspreis der deutschen Gaswirtschaft) 2018 and the international busplaner sustainability award (Internationaler busplaner Nachhaltigkeitspreis) 2019.

Alternative drives: skilled consultations with MAN Transport Solutions

In addition to the new generation of city buses, MAN’s comprehensive consultation services for switching to alternative drives were also included at the UITP Summit. Experts from MAN Transport Solutions’ consultation team were there to answer all questions related to the “low emission” to “no emission” process. The electrification of bus fleets was a focal point of the consultation, with the objective being a tailored and extremely efficient transport solution for the customer. Drawing upon a wealth of experience allows the qualified consultants to not only give advice regarding the vehicle itself; they are also available for questions relating to infrastructure and energy requirements, as well as maintenance concepts and fleet design. This allows them to support operators in the best manner possible.