Daimler wants to sell only electric urban buses in Europe by 2030

Carmaker Daimler Truck's bus division wants to sell only fully electrified city buses in Europe by 2030, and also offer carbon-neutral vehicles in all categories in Europe and Latin America, reported dpa.

"We are focusing our investments on an all-electric city bus segment in Europe by the end of the decade," Till Oberwörder, head of the Daimler Buses division told dpa ahead of an e-mobility event in the German city Mannheim on Monday.

In 2018, Daimler Buses launched the fully electric "eCitaro" city bus. Oberwörder said he was satisfied with the model's roll-out: There are now more than 600 eCitaros on Europe's roads.

The bus division sold 18,736 units last year. The company would not disclose the share of electric vehicles it sold, however.

In general, the proportion of buses running with electric power rather than combustion engines is still low. According to the Association of German Transport Companies, of the 35,000 buses on Germany's roads last autumn, 1,200 were electric buses.

Oberwörder emphasized that it is not enough to build just one electric bus: infrastucture must also change. "Depots would also have to be adapted, charging would have to be considered as well as the workshops," he said.

His company therefore offers not only the vehicle, but a complete package, an "E-system", as Oberwörder calls it.

Daimler Truck is still developing more polluting, conventional combustion-engine vehicles, including buses, however.

In the field of e-mobility, city buses are the segment with the greatest growth rates, according to Oberwörder.