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| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1993 |
| Headquarters | Saint-Eustache, Quebec, Canada  |
| Industry | Manufacturing |
| Products | Public Transit Buses |
| Parent | Prevost Car |
| Website | Official site |
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Nova Bus is a bus manufacturing company based in Saint-Eustache, Quebec, Canada. The company is now owned by Volvo Buses.
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History
The factory was originally a General Motors' plant for building city transit busses intended for the Canadian market. In 1987 GM divested its entire bus holdings, selling them to Motor Coach Industries (MCI), itself formed from companies formerly owned by Greyhound Lines. The plant was used to produce the Classic model for sales in Canada, while GMC's RTS product was moved to join MCI's own designs at Transportation Manufacturing Corporation in Roswell, New Mexico.
MCI decided to divest itself of is urban rapid transit models in 1993, and Nova Bus was created to take over the Classic and RTS models at the Saint-Eustache and Roswell plants. Nova Bus is thus the spiritual descendant of the original GM lines. The Classic and RTS were later dropped in order to concentrate on the Nova LFS, a low-floor city bus, which was introduced in 1995. The last Classic model was produced in 1997.
The Nova LFS proved to perform poorly compared to competitors in terms of sales, and Nova Bus closed their Roswell and Niskayuna, New York plants in 2002 to concentrate all effort on the Canadian market. The Roswell plant was later taken over by a local consortium, Millennium Transit Services, but this effort went bankrupt in 2008.
Nova Bus now tends to focus on the Canadian market. However the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), with several hundred LFS units in its active bus fleet, remains one of the larger NovaBus operators. On February 2, 2008, Nova Bus announced plans for the construction of a new assembly plant in Plattsburgh, New York, signifying the company's return to the U.S. bus market.1
Products
Past
- Rapid Transit Series (RTS) 1993-2002 - developed by General Motors Diesel Division Buses (1977-2003), (although no longer produced by NovaBus, a small company named Millennium Transit purchased the rights to build them) RT80-2W
- Classic 1993-1997 - high floor buses (developed as a redesign of the original GMC New Look) originally produced by GM (1983 - 1987), then MCI (1987-1993), and by NovaBus from 1993 - 1997. Models: TC40102N (40", 102' wide) and TC60102N (60", 102' wide, articulated)
Current
- LFS - low floor and wheelchair accessible (1995-present) in different configurations
- 40 foot Low floor transit bus with a stainless steel structure and diesel engine
- LFS HEV
- 40 foot diesel electric hybrid version of the LFS, using an Allison hybrid drive system
- LFS Suburban
- 40 foot Suburban bus version of the LFS(single and two door variations)
- LFS Shuttle
- 40 foot shuttle bus
- LFS Artic
- 62 foot articulated bus, currently completing testing, with full production expected in 2009, and orders are anticpated by RTC, who have already called for tenders on an articulated bus order, and STM in Montréal. Both systems have tested the LFS Artic in service.
The current powertrain layout mounted to the left is planned to be changed to a center-mounted powertrain with ventilation from the roof on all LFS models starting in 2009. Some demonstrators and test buses already have this layout.
References
- ^ "Bus-assembly plant proposed for Plattsburgh", The Press Republican
External links
