Bennett  Oghifo

Coscharis Motors has produced some electric-powered 40-seater buses ordered by the Abia State Government for commercial use.

Twenty of these buses, the first batch, brought in from China, were unveiled to Auto Journalists by the President of Coscharis Group, Dr. Cosmos Maduka, at Apapa from where they are expected to be driven to Abia State.

The buses, Asia-Coscharis are capable of driving for 300 kilometres on a single charge, said Dr. Maduka, adding that his company will soon begin assembling electric-powered buses and pickups at their assembly plant at Awoyaya in Lagos.

Maduka said, “This is all about innovation. You know, we have partnered with Abia State government to provide them these electric buses. So, this is the first batch of it, 20 units that have just arrived.

“The second batch of the electric buses is in production, and subsequently other ones will be coming. 

“The second batch that is in production is another 20, but there are other batches that I will not disclose now, that are also on the pipeline.

“This bus can seat about 40 people, you know, and this bus has also taken people with disability on a wheel chair, into consideration, It has a gadget that comes out from a side to pull the person in and bring them back. Their seats, the two special seats, are put at the back.”

“Coscharis has continued to lead in innovation in the automobile industry, and when we set up our automobile business, we made a bold statement that will continue to set a standard that other competitors in the industry will be judged by. So we have always been on the frontline, driving innovation.”

He said these buses are specially made, and fitted with cameras at the back and inside, saying passengers can charge their phones, and that “as you come into the bus, you are captured and recorded into some data base that I don’t want to disclose.

“So the days are gone, when you enter the bus, you start picking people’s pockets. So, I think Abia State with this bus will lead in tourism, because they try to keep Abia safe, where people can come in and have the same comfort like it’s done in UK. The Queen of England can enter the bus, because it’s at its best means of transportation.

“That’s what Abia State Government has done with its team, and Coscharis is working with them to deliver on that promise. This bus just arrived from China. It was made in China.

On the charging facility, he said, “We are building a charging facility with them, with Coscharis Technologies. These buses will run in the day, and will be charged overnight. In the morning, they will move. Their base is where we are building the power stations. We are building a solar energy source that will charge them, so they are not even depending on public electricity.

“These buses will be running, because everything is provided from onset. But you can be sure that in the first instance that there are more than 20 charging points. Because if the 40 buses return back in a day, they all need to be charged to be able to work the following day. But when you have fully charged the bus, you can run 300 kilometres before you need recharging. And depending on your trips and distance. This is for intrastate, you know, running maybe from Umuahia to Aba, and all the other locations. So, how many kilometres would they cover in a day? You can actually charge the bus and it can run for 2 days or 3 days, or 4 days, or even a week, subject to the distance that the bus will go. 

He said the choice of electric-powered buses over CNG-powered buses was because “CNG buses still have the parts of internal combustion engine, there is piston, there is ring, there is metal, but this is purely battery. This is where the world is going, this is purely electrification, so all you need to do is to charge and move.”  

These buses, he said, have quick escape hatches and “like every other bus, you will see the small hammer that is kept for a quick escape basis, in addition to two other doors that will be open automatically. You could also see emergency exit here, you could see emergency exit there. “So, there’re emergency exits around 360 degree of the buses should anything happen because we live in a real life where anything could be possible.

“So, all of those things are taken into consideration in building these buses. Here is a fire extinguisher. This is the first fire extinguisher you are seeing in the bus. That is the second fire extinguisher. So, it’s well taken care of should there be an emergency.” 

He spoke briefly about his plans to assemble buses and Pickups at the Lagos plant, saying “The ultimate thing is that we are going to be putting a brand. We are going to be assembling Coscharis Pick-up very soon. There are other Coscharis Motors that we are going to be seeing. And it will be called Coscharis Motors. And ultimately, we will get to the point where we manufacture them from CKD here. We are doing SKD now.

“The plant we have in Awoyaya was made purely for complete knock-down facility. That is the concept and the design. We built the assembly plant, built the painting house, but we didn’t build the welding point because of the downturn in the economy. But as our fleet develops and grows, all of the other things will come on board. And we are going to be leading in this industry.”

Coscharis, he said, is not new to supplying buses, adding, “We supplied over 800 units of buses to Lagos. All these blue buses you see running all over Lagos were delivered by Coscharis. We are building a Coscharis bus.

“These are the first electric buses we are delivering to Abia State, and it’s excellent, it’s a new movement that I hope other states would find valuable and key into.”