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 A 2018 Sunsundegui SC5 | |
| Company type | Sociedade Anónima (S.A.) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Commercial vehicles |
| Founded | 1944 |
| Headquarters | Alsasua, Spain |
Key people | José Ignacio Murillo (MD) |
| Products | Buses and coaches |
| Revenue | €16 million (2022) |
Number of employees | 250 (2022) |
| Website | www.sunsundegui.com/en/ |
Sunsundegui is a bus and coach manufacturer based in Alsasua, Spain.
The company namesake is businessman José Sunsundegui, who founded the company in the Basque Country town of Irún in 1944. Sunsundegui initially started out as a rolling stock repair workshop for Renfe, the Spanish state railway company. [1] This practice continued until the 1980s, when Renfe began to open their own engineering workshops and ceased to use Sunsundegui's services; the company changed focus as a result, launching their first production coach, the Sunsundegui Korinto, in 1987. [1] In 2017, Sunsundegui moved into a €5.5 million new factory in Alsasua. [2]
The first model to see significant export success was the Sunsundegui Sideral, which was exported to the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland in large numbers in the early to mid-2000s. [3] In the late 2010s and early 2020s, the Sunsundegui SB3 and SC5 were ordered in large numbers by Bus Éireann, Go-Ahead Ireland and Ulsterbus for intercity bus services on the island of Ireland; [3] Israel also emerged as another strong export market for the company. [4] Translink Ulsterbus ordered 30 tri-axle Sunsundegui SC5-bodied Volvo B11R coaches for intercity routes in September 2019, [5] followed by a further 30 identical vehicles in September 2020 for Goldline services. [6]
Sunsundegui produced 462 buses and coaches in 2019; by 2022, exports to other countries made up 86% of Sunsundegui's total production. [7] Sunsundegui received a loan of €8.9 million from the provincial government of Navarre in May 2022, after struggling through the COVID-19 pandemic due to a reduced demand for new vehicles. Prior to the pandemic, Sunsundegui employed 550 people; this reduced to 250 employees by March 2022, although plans were in place to begin new recruitments. [7] After being granted the loan, Sunsundegui announced their intention to commence construction of electric vehicles from 2024. [8]
Sunsundegui have predominantly produced high-floor coaches throughout their history, diversifying into low-floor city bus models in the late 2010s. [1]
Scania AB, stylised SCANIA in its products, is a major Swedish manufacturer headquartered in Södertälje, focusing on commercial vehicles—specifically heavy lorries, trucks and buses. It also manufactures diesel engines for heavy vehicles as well as marine and general industrial applications.
Volvo Buses, stylized as VOLVO, is a subsidiary and a business area of the Swedish vehicle maker Volvo, which became an independent division in 1968. It is based in Gothenburg.
Wrightbus is a Northern Irish bus manufacturer and a pioneer of the low-floor bus. The company was established in 1946 by Robert Wright and was later run by his son William Wright, until it was acquired in 2019 by British businessman Jo Bamford.
Ulsterbus is a public transport operator in Northern Ireland and operates bus services outside Belfast. It is part of Translink, the brand name for the subsidiary operating companies of the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company, which also includes Northern Ireland Railways and Metro Belfast.
The Volvo B7TL is a low-floor double-decker bus chassis which was launched in 1999 and replaced the 2-axle version of the Volvo Olympian. It was built as the British bus operators seemed hesitant to purchase the B7L double decker with a long rear overhang.
Van Hool NV is a Belgian coachbuilder and manufacturer of buses, coaches, trolleybuses, and trailers.
Mercedes-Benz has been producing buses since 1895 in Mannheim in Germany. Since 1995 Mercedes-Benz buses and coaches is a brand of EvoBus GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of Daimler Truck.
The Alexander ALX400 was a 2-axle double-decker bus body built by Walter Alexander Coachbuilders. It was one of the ALX-series bodywork, all of which featured the same designs on the front and rear panels that were originally designed for the new generation of mainly low-floor bus chassis produced since the late 1990s.
The Alexander Dennis Enviro300 is a light-weight full-size single-decker bus that was built by Alexander Dennis and its predecessor TransBus International between 2001 and 2015. The design was the first of the new Enviro range of buses from TransBus and also the first bus to be built as an integral bus by TransBus.
The Volvo B10M is a mid-engined city bus and coach chassis manufactured by Volvo between 1978 and 2003. It succeeded the B58 and was equipped with the same 9.6-litre horizontally mounted Volvo diesel engine mounted under the floor behind the front axle. An articulated version under the model name Volvo B10MA was also offered, as was a semi-integral version known as the C10M, with the engine in the middle of the chassis.
Metro is the trading name for bus company Citybus in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is a subsidiary of the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company, within the common management structure of Translink, along with Ulsterbus and Northern Ireland Railways.
Jonckheere was a Belgian motor coach and bus builder, founded in 1881 by Henri Jonckheere in Roeselare.
The Volvo B10L was a rear-engined, low-floor single-decker public bus chassis built by Volvo between c. 1993 and c. 2005. An articulated version of the B10L, known as the B10LA, was also produced.
The Wright Solar is a low entry single-decker bus body that was built on Scania L94UB and Scania K UB chassis by Wrightbus between 2000 and 2011. The Wright Solar Fusion is an articulated version.
The Wright Eclipse is a low-floor single-deck bus body that was built by Wrightbus between 1999 and 2019. The second-generation Eclipse 2 was launched in 2008, followed by the third-generation Eclipse 3 in 2015. The Eclipse, and its sister design the Solar, were named for a solar eclipse which was visible in the UK in 1999, the year of its introduction.
The Scania 4-series low floor city bus and coach range was introduced by Scania in 1997 as a successor to the 3-series bus range.
The Volvo B12M is an underfloor mid-engined bus/coach chassis introduced by Volvo Buses in 2002 as a replacement for the Volvo B10M. It is available with a variety of bodies such as the Van Hool T9 Alizee, Sunsundegui Sideral and Plaxton Panther/Paragon. Large British users of the B12M include Wallace Arnold, Park's Motor Group and Southern Vectis.
The Volvo B11R is a 10.8-litre engined coach chassis available as both two- and tri-axle from Volvo since 2011. It was introduced as the second of the Volvo BXXR series, replacing the rest of the B12B range in 2011, and later its fellow BXXR platform model, the B13R in 2013.
The Volvo B8RLE is a 7.7-litre-engined low-entry bus chassis manufactured by Volvo since 2013 for left-hand drive markets. It was designed as a replacement for the B7RLE and the B9RLE. The right-hand drive version was launched in November 2014.
The MCV EvoTor is a model of coach bodywork produced by Manufacturing Commercial Vehicles (MCV) on Volvo B11R chassis since 2018, mainly for the United Kingdom and Ireland market. The first production EvoTor was unveiled at the 2018 Euro Bus Expo at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham on 30 October 2018. The EvoTor is MCV's first coach product for the British and Irish market, created in collaboration with Golden Tours, a long-standing MCV operator. The EvoTor is produced at the main MCV factory in El Salheya, Egypt.
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