Switch of name for Optare

A Mercedes-Benz diesel-engined Optare Metrodecker, one of five of a cancelled order for Reading Buses’ Green Line services, on test near the factory at Sherburn in Elmet in November.
MALCOLM KING
Ulsterbus 0017 (XUI 6617), from the latest delivery of Optare Solo SRs for this and sister Translink fleet Metro, in service at Lisburn on 28 November.
PAUL SAVAGE

Majority owner Ashok Leyland has renamed part of Optare as Switch Mobility and will eventually phase out the Optare brand name when it ceases building diesel-engined buses. 

The Indian parent company, part of the Hinduja Group and its home country’s second largest bus and truck manufacturer, says this is part of a plan to turn the smallest of the UK’s bus builders into the developer of electric vehicle platforms for buses, light commercial vehicles and personal transport pods for world markets, starting in continental Europe and India.

The limited company Optare Group has been renamed Switch Mobility and will focus exclusively on electric vehicles, but the separate limited company Optare UK will retain its name and continue to focus on vehicles with internal combustion engines.

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