STOAG Stadtwerke Oberhausen GmbH has ordered the first series of the New Generation Citea: 15 electric city buses of type LF-122 are to enter into service in Oberhausen in 2023. The New Generation Citea is developed entirely on an electric power train.
This is the first order for VDL Bus & Coach for the New Citea in Germany. The newly developed bus already been has sold in several European countries and will be deployed in a number of cities and areas starting this year: Netherlands (Eindhoven), Finland (Kotka and Lahti), Belgium (all of Flanders) and France (Bordeaux).
Delivery of the New Generation Citea to STOAG is planned for December 2022. The e-buses have a 429 kWh battery pack. The range of the LF-122 (Low Floor) is between 200 and 300 kilometres in all weather conditions on pure electric power, without any interim recharging. The vehicles will be equipped with pantographs for greater operational flexibility.
"With the 15 new Citeas from VDL, we’re expanding our electromobility considerably," says STOAG Managing Director Werner Overkamp. "We are very much looking forward to these newly designed vehicles." Since the introduction of the first Citea SLF-120 Electric in Geneva, during the UITP Mobility & City Transport exhibition in 2013, VDL Bus & Coach has focused strongly on electric mobility. With more than 1,000 buses in 11 countries, delivered between 2015 and 2021, VDL Bus & Coach has a market share of 14% in Europe. In 2021, VDL Bus & Coach presented the new generation of the electric Citea which has for example a composite sidewall construction that is 15% lighter than a conventional sidewall and an in the floor of the bus integrated battery pack.
STOAG currently provides environmentally friendly mobility in Oberhausen with 6 trams and 131 buses. 4 electric VDL Citeas are already running on line 979 between Oberhausen and Bottrop. As a transport service-provider, STOAG has a long tradition in Oberhausen, a city of more than 200,000 inhabitants in North Rhine- Westphalia. Around 440 employees work within the company. STOAG trams and buses provide direct, seamless connections between the city districts, the most important and interesting facilities in the city and the neighbouring cities.