Belgian bus manufacturer Van Hool has joined forces with Kiepe Electric from Germany and Alstom from France to create the fully electric 24-meter Exqui-City double-articulated bus for Île-de-France Mobilités. The project was first announced in 2022 and is now revealed at Busworld in Brussels, with deliveries scheduled for the end of 2023.

The new 24-meter model joins the Van Hool Exqui.City family of trolleys or tram-buses uses Alstrom’s ground-based conductive static charging system, which allows for quick charging up to 800 kW, providing enough range with charging cycles of just 5 minutes.

Kiepe modular powertrain platform

The powertrain comes from Kiepe Electric, which provides its eBus HPC (High Power Charging) modular platform for battery-electric buses. This includes traction batteries with a high charging capacity, two driven axles, and a traction inverter. An AI-based intelligent fleet management system collects data for smarter charging and battery life extension, which is stored in the cloud and transmitted from Kiepe to the transport company.

Van Hool will make 30 of the Exqui.City 24 buses for the French public transport company Île-de-France Mobilités, which will use them for the Tzen 4 line between Viry-Chatillon and Corbeil-Essonnes. The first deliveries are expected before the end of 2023. A further 26 buses are available to Île-de-France Mobilités as an option.

The production vehicle was shown at the Busworld 2023 expo in Brussels, where BYD also unveiled its e-buses with super-safe Blade batteries.