In California, Flixbus has tested America’s first purely battery-powered long-distance bus. The MCI D45 CRTe LE CHARGE from Motor Coach Industries (MCI) completed its first test with a round trip from San Francisco to Sacramento.

After the successful test run, FlixBus plans to order the MCI buses in 2020, a subsidiary of the North American bus manufacturer New Flyer Industries (NFI), for important routes such as from Los Angeles to San Diego, San Francisco to Sacramento, Portland to Seattle and New York to Philadelphia. The German company announced this in a press release.

The MCI D45 CRTe LE CHARGE has a Siemens 261 kW electric motor and a 389 kWh battery system (optionally up to 544 kWh) that can be charged at 150 kW. NMC cells from XALT Energy are used.

“Testing the first all-electric coach in America is not only a huge milestone for FlixBus but for the travel industry as a whole,” said Michael Kahn, Head of Business Development at Flixbus USA. In addition, Kahn confirmed the company’s goal of being 100 percent CO2-neutral by 2030.

“FlixBus is changing the way people access transportation by applying their innovative model to better connect people to places by bus,” said Brent Maitland, vice president of marketing and product planning for MCI. “The iconic brand’s long-distance application presents an ideal format to demonstrate our electric platform because of our roles as mobility solutions providers to mitigate congestion and improve the environment.”

In Europe, Flixbus already uses electric buses, in France electric buses run between Paris and Amiens and in Germany between Frankfurt am Main and Heidelberg. This spring, the company also announced its intention to develop a fuel cell drive system for buses together with technology specialist Freudenberg Sealing Technologies (FST). FST is also a shareholder in XALT Energy, which supplies the batteries for the US bus.

prnewswire.com