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| Re: MTA presentation: ''Bus Procurement Update'' (July 2013) (280738) | |||
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Re: MTA presentation: ''Bus Procurement Update'' (July 2013) |
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Posted by Dr. Casca on Thu Aug 1 15:03:43 2013, in response to Re: MTA presentation: ''Bus Procurement Update'' (July 2013), posted by R62CNG on Thu Aug 1 14:37:22 2013. Novabus had to move to Canada, otherwise they would of eventually had to close downNovabus did NOT move to Canada, they were already in Canada. They were sold the design rights to the RTS and the Classic, the RTS built in Roswell and the Classic built in St-Eustache. Novabus was heavily marketing the LFS which didn't do so well in Canada, but didn't fare much better in the US market. The RTS was still being produced in Roswell until 2002 when Novabus closed that plant, so that they can focus on LFS production. I believe it was around that time when the La Pocatierre plant opened. The LFS was still being built for the US but at their Schenectady plant, which also shut down. So, Novabus, as far as the LFS is concerned, focused on St-Eustache for LFS production while the RTS lay dead until Millennium bought the Roswell plant. Daimler was still stupid in making that decision because they could of waited a little while to see if things would pick up (which they kinda are now) Well, maybe the decision by Daimler was short-sighted, but remember Daimler was going through some rough waters what with their Chrysler division going bankrupt and being bailed out by the Feds. Daimler's other brands were doing a bit better, mainly in Europe, but Daimler as a corporation was looking at the bigger picture and seeing that their bus business were doing poorly in terms of market share of the industries they built for (again, Orion had roughly 10% market share in the US market at a time when transit funds were slim pickings and nobody was buying large orders of buses except for NYCT and TTC, their largest Orion customers). New Flyer and Gillig both had roughly 3-% market share, both builders had more orders for more equivalent units than any other manufacturer building transit buses in the US year over year. Also, they could of waited and see how the Orion VIII bus would of preformed. They were only a month or 2 anyway from releasing the test bus I had heard from my contacts that the Orion VIII (and even the Orion IX) was pushed back due to their focus on 2010 EPA emissions-related components and design for the Orion VII platform, which is what we saw before Daimler closed Orion. --Dr. C |
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