OREANDA-NEWS. In December, the city authorities plan to announce a tender for the purchase of the first 300 electric buses for operation in the city. KAMAZ intends to participate in this competition, Deputy General Director of the Passenger Transport Enterprise Nikolai Pronin says. According to him, the approximate cost of a single electric bus will be 20-30 million rubles, depending on the configuration and stock of the battery, which determines the power reserve.

For comparison, European electric buses cost between 400-600 thousand euros (27.9-41.9 million rubles), which is slightly more expensive than the Russian equivalent, said Mr. Pronin.

According to him, the Kama electric bus will not need additional infrastructure: charging will be installed on the basis of the existing trolleybus network. KAMAZ holds negotiations about the delivery of electric buses to St. Petersburg, Kazan and Lipetsk, he added. Testing of these electric buses took place in Moscow from March to September 2017. Electric bus can accommodate up to 85 people, charging takes 6-20 minutes at the final stop, the power reserve without recharging - up to 50 km.

Drive Electro is responsible for the engineering of the electric bus, and it also delivers the charging batteries for Kama electric buses. Its general director Sergey Ivanov said that the exploitation term of battery is 15 years old, then the company is ready to buy it and use it again, and after 20 years to dispose. The electric bus is much cheaper to service than a diesel-powered bus, moreover, a kilometer of the journey costs four times cheaper than diesel buses, he noted.

Earlier, the head of Mosgortrans, Yevgeny Mikhailov, said that in December 2017 in Moscow, it is planned to announce a tender for the purchase of 300 electric buses. According to him, the operation of new electric buses will cost less for the city than trolleybuses. The Moscow authorities first announced the idea of bringing electric buses on line in the center of Moscow in 2013. In July of 2017, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin promised in three years to completely replace the capital's bus parc with electric buses.

Earlier on the metropolitan routes there were test samples of electric buses of GAZ, LiAZ, Belkommunmash and Finnish Linkker.

However, conventional buses with an internal combustion engine are much cheaper. In October, Moscow bought 588 buses for 8.1 billion rubles: 350 low-floor buses for 4.5 billion rubles and another 238 buses for 3.6 billion rubles. Thus, the average cost of a bus does not exceed 15.1 million rubles.