Ashok Leyland bags order for 500 electric buses from Chennai MTC

Commercial vehicle maker Ashok Leyland on Thursday said its arm OHM Global Mobility has bagged an order for 500, 12-m ultra-low floor electric buses from the Metropolitan Transport Corporation, Chennai.

Switch Mobility, another subsidiary of Ashok Leyland, shall supply Switch EiV12 model buses to OHM, which in turn shall operate and maintain the buses over a period of 12 years, as per the contract awarded by Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC), the company said in a statement.

While 400 of these buses will be non-AC, 100 buses will be equipped with air conditioning as well, it added.

The electric buses have a seating capacity of 37 passengers, with space for an additional 24 standing passengers. These have a range of over 200 kilometers per charge. OHM is Ashok Leyland's electric mobility arm, focused on Mobility-as-a-Service business.

"We are committed to driving the transition to electric mobility, and this partnership with MTC is a step forward in creating cleaner, more efficient transport systems," Ashok Leyland MD & CEO Shenu Agarwal said.
Switch Mobility already has over 950 vehicles in operation and with this order has a healthy order book of over 2,000 vehicles, he added.