German lithium battery group BMZ is supplying more than 1,000 battery systems to electric bus developer Eurabus in a deal worth €200 million (US$233m).
BMZ said the lithium-ion batteries, being developed in its ‘E.Volution Center’ in Germany, enable the buses to “continue driving even in the event of a partial battery failure”.
The twelve- and six-metre-long e-buses are “modularly equipped with a battery capacity of up to 790 kilowatt-hours and can travel 650 kilometres on a single charge”, BMZ said.
Founder and CEO Sven Bauer said the battery cells for the buses “are BMZ round cells with a high energy density, which we manufacture on our own production lines in Japan as a globally operating company in the field of lithium-ion applications”.
Bauer said the supply deal was a “milestone” for the electric bus industry. “Europe-wide demand for e-buses is on the increase— a real boom is emerging for public transport.”
According to BMZ, only around 300 of some 45,000 public transport buses in Germany are currently electrically powered— and only half of that number use battery technology.
BMZ told BEST Battery Briefingearlier this year the company was considering partnering with a Japanese company to launch a battery cell production plant in Europe.
