Consortium Bus Électrique has launched a $73—million project to design and manufacture two models of electric city buses made of aluminum.

Reproduced by kind permission of Nova Bus.

The nine companies in the consortium created for the project—Nova Bus, Bathium Canada, TM4, Giro, René Composite Materials, Precicad, Infodev, Styl&Tech and CPI Structures—will take part in developing the vehicles. Aluminum companies in Québec, through the Aluminum Association of Canada, will also be partners. They will invest $1.5 million over four years in R&D. The Québec government will grant a $30-million subsidy over three years to the project, which will employ a hundred people between now and 2014.