Sunday 26 April 2020

Autonomous electric bus to arrive in Turkey

Karsan has unveiled plans to introduce an autonomous electric bus in Turkey.

The Turkish bus and coach manufacturer intends to develop an eight-metre electric city bus with autonomous driving skills developed by California-based company Adastec.

The bus will also use equipment that allows the detection of all living and non-living things around the vehicle including radars, lidars and thermal cameras required for the performance of automatic driving functions.

In March, the company stated orders for 20 electric buses have already been sent.

Okan Baş, Karsan CEO, said: "We started works to ensure that Atak Electric, which was developed by our R&D team and went into mass production in September 2019, features an automatic driving system that will handle all the requirements for a dynamic driving experience without the help of a driver.

"We will complete the prototype for autonomous Atak Electric in August, and its simulation and validation tests will be carried out in our factory in Hasanağa, Bursa. We will make Autonomous Atak Electric ready by the end of this year."