Wrightbus reveals first re-powered truck

Northern Ireland bus manufacturer Wrightbus has revealed its first re-powered truck as it aims to grow its market share in zero-emission transport.

The re-powered 19-tonne twin-axle DAF is the work of ‘NewPower’, Wrightbus’ new bus re-powering division in Oxfordshire, whose engineers strips out diesel engines and replaces them with an electric powertrain.

Wrightbus says the conversion can take as little as four weeks, stripping out the diesel engine and gearbox and replacing it with an electric powertrain.

The company has spent the last 11 months on the project, which has seen it modify the vehicle to accommodate the 282kWh battery with a claimed range of 290km.

The NewPower division is expected to create 160 jobs over the next two years in the UK.

The new venture forms part of a global expansion for Wrightbus across the UK, Europe and Asia. Already employing more than 2,300 people, and with service centres in Ballymena, Coventry, Bicester, Brühl in Germany and Selangor in Malaysia, Wrightbus aims to become a worldwide leader in zero-emission public transport.

“We believe that re-powering is the simplest and most cost-effective way to ignite the market and our incredible Wrightbus engineers have more experience than anyone else in replacing internal combustion engines with electric powertrains,” said CEO, Jean-Marc Gales.

Wrightbus has grown its zero-emission bus roster from 200 units in 2023, to 900 in 2024. It expects to surpass 3,000 units by the end of 2025.

“Operators and fleet managers can have complete confidence that we can provide a 360-degree solution; helping bus customers adapt from diesel fleets to zero-emission fleets seamlessly, maintaining them with 98.6 per cent uptime, and with each bus covering an average of 50,000 miles per annum,” Gales added.