UK bus firm places 1000+ BEV order

UK bus operator Go-Ahead will make a £500mn ($655mn) investment to decarbonise its fleet with an order for over 1,000 all-electric buses over the next three years from Northern Ireland-based manufacturer Wrightbus. The deal also includes a new dedicated manufacturing line and a training and apprenticeships fund that will see the development of a learning academy for Go-Ahead and Wrightbus employees.

And Go-Ahead will become an official partner with the world’s only research centre dedicated to zero-emission buses, W-Tech, which is backed by Wrightbus and Queen’s University Belfast. In addition, for every vehicle manufactured, 10 trees will be planted by Go-Ahead and Wrightbus in the towns and cities where the buses are deployed.

The order is for 1,200 buses in total, of which the vast majority, 1,157 or 96pc, will be BEV. It is the second major order for all-electric buses in the UK in a matter of weeks, after bus and coach firm Stagecoach announced plans to add 715 new EVs to its fleet late last month.

Dirty secret

The remaining 43 units of the Go-Ahead order will be hydrogen FCEVs for a project Go-Ahead has in the Crawley area of southeast England that is part-funded (i.e. subsidised) with money from UK government and EU zero-emission bus schemes. And Wrightbus lets slip a dirty little secret about the hydrogen aspect of the order.

“Because more than 90pc of the order will be zero-emission, it also represents a huge boost to the UK’s net zero goals and the government’s Decarbonisation Transport Plan, which is committed to supplying 4,000 new zero-emission buses in the UK,” the Ballymena-based firm says.

In other words, while the partner can boast that, “over the three years of the partnership, 1.13mn t CO₂ will be mitigated when the vehicles are in operation”, the source of the fuel for the FCEV buses is not green hydrogen, so these will be vehicles fuelled by hydrogen from methane steam reformation.

Government initiative

“This announcement will see communities across the country benefit from brand new, state-of-the-art green buses — which will deliver cleaner air and better journeys,” says UK transport minister Louise Haigh. She also plans to create a new UK Bus Manufacturing Expert Panel, aiming to bring together industry experts and local leaders to “explore ways to ensure the UK remains a leader in bus manufacturing, help local authorities deliver on their transport ambitions, and begin to seize opportunities to embrace zero emission transport technologies”.

“This multi-million pound investment and partnership with Wrightbus will accelerate the transition to zero-emission fleet across the UK,” adds Go-Ahead Bus CEO Matt Carney.

“This deal represents a massive step forward in our ambition to help decarbonise the transport sector with our world-leading products,” says Wrightbus CEO Jean-Marc Gales. “It was heartening today to hear the government reaffirm its commitment to a green transport sector.”

Wrightbus is enjoying material progress on its BEV buses, helping it to a 40pc market share and delivering an average 22 buses a week so far in 2024. It has registered 786 buses sold so far this year, of which 662, or 84pc, have been single- or double-decker BEVs.

It is also selling into Europe and the Far East and picking up orders for its New Power repowering service launched in June which swaps out old diesel engines for an EV powertrain.

Despite the clear preference among customers for BEV buses seen in this year’s sales so far and in the Go-Ahead order, Wrightbus owner Jo Bamford continues to be a prominent cheerleader for hydrogen. And there is no sign that he is going to allow the firm to concentrate on its main all-electric growth driver and forget about the H₂-as-public-transport-fuel sideshow that is only going to get more irrelevant as subsidies dry up.

“We also unveiled our hydrogen coach demonstrator which will go into production in 2026,” Gales said earlier this month.