Automated transfer of electric buses mid-conversion.
Ecotuned converts diesel school buses into 100 % electric vehicles. Mid-process the powertrain is removed — the bus can no longer move on its own. Inogec built a custom ultra-thin AGV that lifts and shifts the bus laterally between assembly bays, in full safety.
A bus, no engine, and a tight floor.
Ecotuned removes the combustion drivetrain before installing the electric one. Between those steps the bus has no propulsion, no power steering, and no working brakes.
The plant runs parallel assembly bays — and traditional towing or forklift handling created three problems at once:
- Complex maneuvers in restricted aisles
- Increased risk to operators standing close to the bus
- Long transfer times that bottlenecked downstream stations
- Wide circulation aisles that consumed valuable floor space
Five measurable goals.
- Make every bus transfer safer than a manual push
- Cut indexing time between stations
- Eliminate dedicated forklift aisles
- Densify the assembly layout — more bays per square foot
- Standardize the transfer process so any shift can run it
A custom AGV designed under the bus.
INOGEC engineered a vehicle from the chassis up — not adapted from a catalogue product. Three sub-systems, one integrated platform.
Specialized mechanical design
Platform low enough to slide directly under the bus, with an automatic centering system on the chassis and a custom lifting tool that picks the bus up at its strategic lift points — no risk of structural damage.
360° advanced safety
Once the bus is raised, LIDAR sensors generate a complete protective field around the vehicle. Real-time obstacle detection feeds the safety controller; the operator drives the sequence, the system enforces dynamic safety.
Omnidirectional crab movement
Bays are arranged in parallel, so the critical motion is lateral. The AGV performs controlled crab movements — the bus shifts directly to the next station with no rotation, no wide aisles, no complex maneuvering.
Faster, safer, denser.
“We needed to move buses that can't move themselves — between bays placed shoulder-to-shoulder. Inogec delivered the only solution we found that does it safely and fits our layout.”