- Solaris Bus & Coach
Solaris Bus & Coach S.A. is a
bus , coach andtrolleybus manufacturer based in Bolechowo and Środa Wielkopolska, nearPoznań ,Poland .It is a
family-owned business , with Krzysztof Olszewski as chairman and his wife Solange as deputy chairman responsible for contacts with clients. It is located in a former weapons factory, and was featured byBBC World in a program related to EU expansion in May2004 , as an example of a post-communist success in Poland.Fact|date=February 2007History
Solaris started as Neoplan Polska, founded in 1994 by Krzysztof Olszewski. Neoplan Polska was selling, and since March 1996 also building under German licence, low-floor
Neoplan city buses. In 1999 it released first buses under its own Solaris brand (model Urbino). On 1 September 2001 Neoplan Polska was renamed to Solaris Bus & Coach Sp. z o.o. In 2005 it was transformed intojoint stock company .In the 1990s, the company developed its own research office and used computer software originally developed for the design of
space shuttle s. It reduced the time needed to design and build new prototypes to about six months. Another six months are needed to build a new bus prototype.Solaris is one of the newest players in the European bus market, but already quite successful: Solaris has received awards for their products in
Kortrijk Bus World show inBelgium . Trolleybuses are made in co-operation with the Hungarian companyGanz Electro or (the Czech division of) the companyCegelec . Both companies make the electric devices for the vehicles. Solaris produced the first European bus model using hybrid technology, the "Solaris Urbino 18 Hybrid". That hybrid model was ordered a few months ago by the Polish city ofPoznań .In 2007 Solaris was employing about 1,200 workers. Now "Solaris Bus & Coach" builds 600-700 buses a year.
Sales
Solaris has sold diesel and CNG-powered buses to numerous cities in Europe, and trolleybuses to
Italy (Rome andNaples ),France (Paris ,Bayonne andNarbonne ),Denmark ,Sweden (Landskrona ),Germany (Berlin ),Lithuania (Kaunas andVilnius ),Latvia (Riga ),Estonia (Tallinn ),Switzerland (Winterthur andLa Chaux-de-Fonds ),Hungary (Budapest andDebrecen ),Czech Republic (Opava andOstrava ),Poland (Lublin ,Gdynia ,Poznań andTychy ).Products
* Alpino - citybus
* Urbino - citybus
* Urbino Low Entry - citybus
* Valletta - citybus
* Vacanza - coach
* Trollino - trolleybusExternal links
* [http://www.solarisbus.pl/ Official site] (Polish, English, German, Russian) — requires Macromedia Flash Player for actual content
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