Russian truck manufacturer KAMAZ has opened a plant to produce electric buses on the property of the Sokolniki Car Repair and Construction Plant (SVARZ) in Moscow.

An assembly line designed to produce up to 500 electric buses per year will operate at SVARZ as the first stage.

In the second stage, KAMAZ will construct another building of about 3,000 square meters, which will allow the company to manufacture 200 more electric buses per year. Bus maintenance and service will also be performed at the facility.

To prepare for mass production, 11 test buses have been manufactured at SVARZ; 5 have passed a full run-in and a leak test in a special sprinkler chamber. This May, they will appear on the streets of Moscow.

The KAMAZ 6282 electric bus is driven by two 125 kW ZF motors, powered by 80 kWh lithium titanate (LTO) battery packs, and charged by ultra-fast charging stations using a pantograph. Cruising range is 50 km.

Moscow is the largest operator of electric buses in Europe. The city already has 600 e-buses in operation on its routes, and plans to purchase another 1,600 electric buses over next few years, entirely replacing its diesel fleet.

Source: Green Car Congress