IVECO

The brand already produces the Daily line minibuses powered by natural gas in the Ivory Coast

Iveco Bus has partnered with the Ivory Coast company Sotra Industrie to produce the gas-powered Daily Minibus. The brand named the model Daily Ivoire(image above), which in French means Ivory. Production will be carried out at the Sotra factory, with the capacity to produce 1,000 units per year. Thus, the Daily will be the first minibus made in the country.

The project, which started in 2018, is the result of a collaboration between Iveco Bus, a brand of the Iveco Group, and SOTRA (Société des Transports Abidjanais), which has been the public transport provider for Abidjan and its suburbs for nearly 40 years. .

As a great differential, the Iveco minibus has a natural gas engine from FPT Industrial, which is also a brand of the Iveco group. In addition, it has an interesting capacity, which varies between 16 and 26 seats.

Sotra has already produced 60 units of the vehicle that will be destined for the domestic market of Côte d'Ivoire and other countries in Central and West Africa. To produce the gas-powered Daily Minibus, the manufacturer employs 500 workers on the assembly line.

According to Iveco, the initiative contributes to the Ivorian government's program to modernize the transport offer. And it serves to diversify the national economy through industrialization.

With the new gas-powered minibuses, Iveco takes another step towards advancing the supply of trucks and buses with an alternative to diesel propulsion. Therefore, the Italian brand is one of the most advanced in the offer of these products in the world.

Here in South America, Iveco was the first to homologate a gas truck for production in Argentina, in 2020. However, in Brazil, it still produces only diesel trucks and buses. Last year, the automaker renewed the Daily lineup for passengers, but none of the models will have alternative fuel, at least for now.

Autonews/Mundoquatrorodas