That's quite a confident pronouncement, unless you have inside info. I would say it's an open book at the moment given the less than successful introduction of the bzl and the fact that there's going to have to probably be some kind of change going forward, at least if nothing else for new airport fleet
That’s true, but it still doesn’t justify a reason to switch to ADL.
Lothian have been with Volvo for decades now. Everything is set up to work around Volvo products. There’s potential for the odd niche batch of vehicles in this era, but in terms of switching the whole fleet? I doubt it will ever happen. It’s more likely in my view that Michael O’Leary switches the entire Ryanair fleet from Boeing’s to Airbus’ than it is Lothian switching away from Volvo. Ryanair of course have never ultimately switched.
A switch away nearly happened in the Renilson era with all the Tridents and Darts that were procured, but when TransBus went bust where did Lothian go? Straight back to Volvo. Lothian I believe got a ridiculous price on those at the time so that’s why they went with them, no other reason.
They did opt for NewPower conversions for the tour buses but that was ultimately down to cost and the fact the range offered did more than good enough for the tours. There were suggestions of further conversions after this, but I can’t see it being that likely now as come 2027 and there will likely be still a handful of diesel tours remaining by then. The process of conversion is not a quick one and so far none have re-entered service either. By then you’re looking at almost a third of the city fleet being electric, if not more.
You could argue perhaps Volvo do take the likes of Lothian for granted, but for Lothian to switch to another supplier fully? It would never make sense. The current issues are MCV specific and not necessarily Volvo issues. The only part you could say that is Volvos issue is the fact they have contracted the bodies to MCV. There’s been orders far beyond what MCV can handle and MCV continues to body the majority of Volvo’s diesel bus chassis’ as well. In time it should ease off. The batch of 48 should hopefully have less issues.
The only offering at the moment that makes sense for a non Volvo product would be for the Airlinks. As Volvo is yet to offer a viable product for Lothian’s needs in this regard. Now Lothian may opt to wait for such a product from Volvo to appear, but the XLB’s in Airlink terms are old now and need something to be done.
Good one, its also a brilliant excuse to obsess over something!