2019 was an exciting and changeable year for the MAN Group in many respects. Thanks to buoyant orders in the previous year and in the first quarter of 2019 and the high levels of order backlog that characterized the beginning of the year, unit sales of trucks, buses, and vans rose by almost 5% in 2019, with Group sales revenue up by 5% to around €13 billion. There was a noticeable improvement in operating profit and a 2.9% increase in operating return on sales. The MAN Group’s profitability, however, remains well below its long-term targets.
We worked hard in 2019 to drive forward a milestone project for the MAN Group: the new truck generation of MAN Truck & Bus. It has been on the market since its launch on February 10, 2020, in Bilbao, Spain.
In 2019, MAN Truck & Bus focused sharply on developing electric powertrains for distribution trucks and city buses. Test drives with the innovative, fully electric MAN eTGM distribution truck, for example, were continued in everyday logistics operations. The truck was trialed in day-to-day use at Porsche plant logistics. The results have been very positive so far. A small batch series of fully electric trucks will be produced in 2020. MAN Truck & Bus has entered into partnerships with a number of large cities to develop a fully electric city bus. The first two MAN Lion’s City E buses were handed over in Hamburg at the end of 2019 for this purpose. Further vehicles will follow in 2020. The insights gained as a result of operating the vehicle on a daily basis are significant and will be integrated into series production, which will begin in the second half of 2020.
MAN Truck & Bus, along with Volkswagen, is also a partner in a pilot project in Hamburg that aims to reuse batteries in a sustainable way. This included combining 50 used vehicle batteries into one storage system that supports daily charging. The aim is to avoid inefficient power peaks when it comes to electricity consumption, such as those caused by charging multiple electric buses at the same time.
Please click here to view the full press release.
SOURCE: MAN
