Press releases

2020/11/13

THE CAF GROUP SUBSIDIARY SOLARIS WILL SUPPLY MILAN WITH AN ADDITIONAL 100 ELECTRIC BUSES

The Milan operator, ATM, has decided to order an additional 100 electric buses from Solaris, under the framework contract concluded between both companies halfway through last year, and under which a first batch of 40 electric buses was recently delivered. As per the terms of the contract, the CAF Group subsidiary will deliver these 100 new 12-metre long Urbino electric buses to the Italian fashion capital in the first half of 2021.

The framework contract with the Milanese operator consisted in the supply of up to 250 electric buses in successive batches, with this contract confirming the Italian company's intentions to do away with its current diesel bus fleet by the end of 2030. Solaris' relationship with ATM in Milan began in 2014. Since then, Solaris has already supplied this operator with 200 vehicles, including 25 electric buses delivered in 2018 and 2019.

In this case, ATM, which is based in Milan, decided to custom adapt the buses with two innovative solutions. The first one is called Mobileye Shield +, a warning system that uses audio and visual alerts to provide warnings when objects are detected in the driver's blind spot. This provides a warning of vehicles changing lanes without signalling beforehand, or of unsafe distance from the vehicle in front.

The second system, called MirrorEye, is a solution that will be implemented on one of the Milan electric buses on a trial basis. This solution involves the side mirrors being replaced with cameras to improve visibility, especially at night and in adverse weather conditions.

Solaris reaches electric bus number 1,000

The CAF Group has become one of the leading electric bus suppliers on the international market. It should be pointed out that this new batch of 100 vehicles includes the 1000th electric bus built by the CAF Group subsidiary, Solaris, which presented its first battery Urbino electric bus model in 2011. Since then, almost 100 clients from 18 countries have opted for Solaris' electric vehicles for their transport services. Indeed, the Solaris Urbino electric model was named the Bus of the Year 2017 in Europe.