■ PROTERRA, the United States’ leading manufacturer of all-electric buses, has secured $55million (£42.5million) investment — some of it from BMW i Ventures, the venture capital arm of the German car giant — to increase production and research and development in California.
■ HYDROGEN fuel-cell buses for four locations in Germany and the northern Italian region of South Tyrol will be purchased jointly as part of the 139-vehicle European Union-funded Jive (Joint Initiative for Hydrogen Vehicles) programme that also aims to bring such vehicles to London, Birmingham, Aberdeen and Dundee. The 63 vehicles are for the Italian city of Bolzano and the German cities of Cologne, Frankfurt and Wiesbaden.
■ BYD has signed an agreement with the government of Ecuador to build a factory where the Chinese manufacturer will produce up to 300 electric buses a year for South America.
■ MERCEDES-BENZ has secured a 600-vehicle order from the Saudi Arabia capital Riyadh for Citaro rigid and bendybuses to be delivered in 2018-20. The customer is a joint venture involving Saudi public transport company Saptco and French state-owned RATP.
