The MAN Lion’s City 12 E LE has secured first place in the “12 m Electric Buses” category at the prestigious busplaner Innovation Award 2025, presented by the German trade magazine busplaner (Huss-Verlag). Celebrated for its versatile performance in both urban and rural settings and its strong focus on sustainability, the all-electric low-entry bus stood out among 66 innovative and practical solutions nominated across 13 categories. Winners were chosen through a public vote by the magazine’s readers, covering a wide range of advancements in electric and hybrid vehicles, safety systems, fleet management, and bus tourism services.
“We are delighted that our MAN Lion’s City 12 E LE won the readers’ poll. The result proves that our bus impresses customers with its flexibility and comfort, but also with its performance and sustainability,” says Darko Simeunovic, Head of Bus Sales at MAN Truck & Bus Germany. After all, the all-electric city bus is powered by a powerful central electric motor with a peak output of 240 kW. Thanks to MAN’s modular battery concept, operators of city and intercity routes can flexibly adapt the number of battery packs to their needs in terms of charging time, number of passengers and range. They can choose between four to six battery packs with a capacity of up to 480 kWh.
The MAN Lion’s City 12 E LE, which is based on the electric 12-metre solo bus, also demonstrates flexibility in terms of its areas of application. The model is designed so that it can be used in both urban and interurban transport. With the floor landscape adapted to customer feedback, it ensures a particularly high level of seating comfort. The bus has 41 passenger seats plus a special area for wheelchairs and baby carriages as well as an engine tower-free rear landscape in a low-entry design, making it ideal for suburban routes with Class 1 approval. The low-entry bus also marks MAN’s all-electric entry into the growing intercity bus segment. Class 2 approval for use on intercity routes will soon be possible for the eBus, for which the stricter body rigidity requirements of UN ECE R 66.02 also apply.
The Lion’s City 12 E LE celebrated its premiere at Busworld Europe in autumn 2023. “A year later, it received the ‘Sustainable Bus of the Year 2025’ award in the intercity bus category and now it has been awarded the ‘busplaner Innovation Award 2025’ – that’s a great success for us. The awards show that our commitment to sustainability, innovative technologies and practical and adaptable solutions for the requirements of modern public transport in the city and also on the intercity market are being well received,” says Heinz Kiess, Head of Product Marketing Bus at MAN Truck & Bus.
