Despite the growing popularity of urban electric transport in Canada, Winnipeg is far behind.
New Flyer Industries is a large company from Winnipeg which manufactures and delivers slow-charging electric buses. On Friday representatives of the company stated about their plans to supply 40 electric buses to Montreal and Laval for a total amount of $43.2 million.
Over the past 3 years, New Flyers has taken a leading position in the North American market and currently serves most of the largest carriers as well as more than 400 transit agencies in general.
Despite this fact, in Winnipeg Transit only 4 of 623 buses are electric and produced by new flyers. Mayor Bowman has long stated his intention to electrify urban transport but the results of the pilot project of 2014 are still pending.
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New Flyer Industries is clearly ready to support the city in this endeavor but for this it is necessary to coordinate plans with the city authorities. The task became even more difficult after the Winnipeg transit budget wascut in 2017 because electric buses cost an average of 150 000 more expensive than diesel-powered buses.