General Motors said it received orders for more than 1,700 hybrid buses from transit agencies in Washington D.C., Philadelphia and Minneapolis/St. Paul. Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed. GM estimates that the 1,732 buses will save an estimated 2.4 million gallons of fuel annually. Allison Transmission is GM’s partner on the project, and the new deliveries will almost triple GM’s current fleet of nearly 1,000 hybrid buses.
Washington ordered 952 buses, Philadelphia ordered 480 and Minneapolis/St. Paul plans to purchase up to 300. GM debuted the transit bus hybrid technology, which improves fuel economy compared with traditional diesel buses, in 2003.
Last month, DaimlerBuses North America received orders from New York City and Ottowa for 1,052 Orion VII Next Generation diesel-electric hybrid transit buses. And last year, King County, Washington, was awarded a contract for the purchase of up to 500 articulated buses, most of which will be powered by General Motors’ 2-mode hybrid system.