The legendary Hungarian Ikarus buses are returning to Azerbaijan in a completely new form and with modern features.
Ikarus Group CEO Roland Feher said that his company won the tender for the supply of buses in the country. The delivery of the first 50 Ikarus buses on an electric platform has already been agreed upon.
“I hope that within a year the first buses will arrive in Baku, and in the future their supplies will increase. After three years of exporting finished electric buses, a plant for assembling Ikarus vehicles will be built in Azerbaijan with a capacity of 600 vehicles per year. We will bring 8.5 meter and 12 meter electric buses with zero emissions to Azerbaijan. Our electric buses will also serve to protect the environment of Azerbaijan and combat climate change. Along with Germany, Greece, Romania, Poland and other EU countries, Ikaruses are also exported to the Turkic countries of the former USSR, where the population warmly remembers the work of our spacious buses in Soviet times,” he said.
Until 1991, buses of this brand accounted for up to 90% of the Baku fleet. By the end of the 1980s, Ikarus became the main type of public transport in most Soviet cities, and a total of 200 thousand diesel buses were delivered to the Union republics.
In 2003, the company was closed due to unprofitability, but later the brand was bought by Hungarian businessmen, and now Ikarus has been revived as a manufacturer of electric buses.