MAN Truck & Bus
16 Nov 2021
Pellworm is celebrating a new era of sustainable mobility. Holiday guests and islanders can now for the first time use a fully-electric urban bus to travel around the North Frisian island. The operator Neue Pellwormer Dampfschiffahrts GmbH made the decision to acquire the MAN Lion’s City 12 E.
Landmark: The Pellworm lighthouse is also depicted on the MAN electric bus that has been in service on the island since August 2021.
Seals are romping around the sandbanks in the shallow water. The wind is blowing over green meadows where sheep are contentedly grazing. Wind turbines and windmills are turning. There’s barely a soul to be seen on the flat landscape. Pellworm is a natural paradise recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Preserving this status results in the environment and climate protection being major issues on this 37 square kilometre island in the North Sea. A MAN Lion’s City 12 E has therefore been in service on Pellworm since August 2021. This fully-electric urban bus transports islanders and guests from the ferry terminal to the main town of Tammensiel, and enables holidaymakers to take tours around the island – all emission-free. “We’re really pleased that acquiring this bus is enabling us to take a small step towards climate neutrality on Pellworm”, explains Sven Frener, the managing director of Neue Pellwormer Dampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft GmbH (NPDG). This operator purchased the fully-electric urban bus in the context of a joint project with other transport companies which was funded by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU). The island’s electricity comes almost entirely from renewable energy sources like solar, wind and biogas. This eco-friendly energy mix is also use to recharge the MAN Lion’s City E, thus fully exploiting the ecological advantages of its emission-free drive system. The bus is recharged directly at the Neue Pellwormer Dampfschiffahrts GmbH (NPDG) depot on Pellworm.
The bus will also be used for school runs, so it is equipped with interurban seating and lap and diagonal seat belts. This MAN Lion’s City E can accommodate a total of 70 passengers. The exterior of the bus is charmingly decorated with lighthouses and windmills, which makes it stand out. “We jazzed up the design with island motifs”, recounts NPDG managing director Sven Frener.
The island’s population emphatically supported choosing the commercial vehicle from MAN to take their step towards electric mobility. “The citizens were included in the decision as to which bus should be purchased, and they decided on MAN”, is the proud statement from Christoph Huber, chairman of the board at MAN Truck & Bus Deutschland GmbH. He’s convinced that the inhabitants of this UNESCO World Heritage Site have made the right choice. “Our fully-electric MAN Lion’s City 12 E is a superbly designed product that guarantees quiet and locally emission-free passenger transport. NPDG’s acquisition of such an electric bus with interurban seating for Pellworm demonstrates the huge potential for deployment of electric buses. At the same time it fits perfectly with this North Sea island’s concept for sustainability as a marine spa in the middle of the Wadden Sea National Park”, says Christoph Huber.
Across Germany, the MAN Lion’s City E fully-electric urban bus is not merely welcomed in natural beauty spots like Pellworm, but above all in major conurbations. Transport companies in Hamburg, Cologne, Braunschweig, Munich and Nuremberg are already relying on this long-range e-bus. The fully-electric power train in the rigid bus has an output of 160 kW to a maximum of 240 kW. The energy for this stems from the modular batteries with 480 kWh of installed capacity. MAN can in this case rely on sophisticated battery cell technology from the Volkswagen Group. Advanced temperature management also ensures particularly good availability at any time of year.
The MAN Lion’s City 12 E did after all prove what it can achieve in terms of range during the “MAN eBus Efficiency Run”. In May this year, the fully-electric e-bus covered a total of 550.8 kilometres in around 24 hours in service conditions on Münchner Verkehrsgesellschaft (MVG) routes 176 and X80 – without any interim charging. This electric bus therefore delivers the best prerequisites to now also ensure clean mobility on Pellworm.
Text: Felix Enzian
Photos: Christoph Pforr
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