Pelican completes McGill’s delivery

Pelican Engineering has completed the fit-out and commissioning of its biggest-ever order of electric Yutong buses. It sees McGill’s receive the last of its 55 Yutong E12 electric buses ahead of the start of COP26 climate change conference on 31 October.

Despite global supply chain disruption over the last few months, the full fleet has been delivered on schedule. It will be in service on routes around the city and in Renfrewshire. After the initial vehicle was delivered in July, the balance of the 54 vehicles has been completed in less than seven weeks.

Pelican’s technicians undertook the full commissioning of the buses, from fitting customer-specific seats to carrying out high voltage and EV checks and battery maintenance to ensure the vehicles are ready for service. The vehicles completed the 240mile trip using 60% of their battery capacity. After a complete safety inspection, the buses entered into service the day after delivery.

Head of Yutong Bus UK at Pelican, Ian Downie, said: “With demand for zero emission buses and coaches really gaining momentum, it’s vital that our highly trained team in the UK is able to swiftly fit out the electric vehicles according to our customers’ specifications and get them on the road and in service on schedule.

“Despite issues arising from Brexit and Covid which have impacted so many industries this year, we met our commitment to deliver all 55 zero emission buses to McGill’s in Glasgow in time for COP26, giving the bus operator the largest zero emission fleet in Scotland.”