National Express West Midlands orders 170 electric buses

Credit: West Midlands Combined Authority

National Express West Midlands has announced that a fleet of 170 electric double decker buses will join its growing number of zero-emission buses – in its biggest electric bus order to date.

Part of the company’s £150 million investment in 300 UK-made zero-emission buses that had been announced in the beginning of 2023, the National Express has now ordered 170 fully electric buses, to be delivered by the end of 2024. The new British buses will be deployed across the West Midlands. 

The new order takes the total number of electric buses to be operated by National Express in the West Midlands to 329, making it the largest of the type in the UK. It follows an earlier order for 130 buses to join the fleet in Coventry, as part of a £140 million project to make the city the UK’s first all-electric bus city by 2025. 

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In 2020, National Express West Midlands had launched an initial 29 fully electric buses into service on routes across Coventry, Birmingham and Solihull. With a total 329 of these vehicles in operation, the bus operator is expected to save nearly 22,000 tonnes of carbon from going out into the atmosphere every year.

Tom Stables, CEO National Express UK and Germany, said: “Replacing another 170 of our diesel buses with electric is a huge step for us delivering on our commitment to have a completely zero-emission bus fleet in the UK by 2030. These clean, green UK-built double decker buses are popular with our customers. As a result, they are not only more economical to run but they will boost passenger growth by getting more people to ditch their cars for the bus; and of course they do their bit to help tackle the climate and clean air emergency.”

Additional investment will be made in infrastructure for charging and maintenance of the fleet across National Express West Midlands’ network of depots. The electricity to power the electric vehicles will be 100% renewable and zero carbon.