PARIS, France, Sep 9, 2025 – OPmobility has signed an agreement with HESS AG to supply battery packs in the coming years. The partnership highlights how OPmobility focuses its strategy to grow its technology base and expand its customer portfolio in the electric public transport sector.
As part of this collaboration, OPmobility has designed and developed modular battery packs that can be adapted to buses and cater to customer needs. Customers can request onboard energy to increase vehicle range, or more power to enhance performance in mountainous regions. The batteries will equip trolleybuses and TOSA buses (tram-buses) developed by HESS.
The first buses resulting from this partnership are already on the road. They will carry passengers in European cities like France, Switzerland and Italy.
Youssef Souiba, executive vice president, president of OPmobility’s C-Power business group, stated: “Our partnership with HESS illustrates the quality of the innovative technological solutions developed by OPmobility to serve all types of mobility. It enables the Group to contribute to the development of a collective mobility that is more sustainable, quieter, safer, emits less CO2 and is particularly well suited to urban lifestyles. OPmobility is thus continuing to implement three pillars of its strategy: technological diversification, client diversification, and mobility diversification in its historic European market.”
Trolleybuses are electric buses powered through catenaries (overhead wires) and draw electricity while traveling along fixed routes. HESS has developed 18-meter models with auxiliary batteries, allowing them to operate temporarily away from the wires and increase route flexibility.
TOSA buses (Trolleybus Optimization Système Alimentation, or tram-buses) are developed to run without overhead wires. Measuring 18 to 24 meters, they use lightweight batteries that recharge at passenger stops along the route. The system enables faster charging, allowing the vehicles to operate on urban lines.
Source: OPmobility
About OPmobility
OPmobility is a French industrial group founded in 1946 by Pierre Burelle. Headquartered in Levallois-Perret, France, the company specializes in sustainable mobility solutions, offering products such as exterior and lighting systems, complex modules, energy storage systems, and electrification solutions for both battery and hydrogen-powered vehicles. Serving a global clientele of car and truck manufacturers, OPmobility operates 150 production plants and 40 R&D centers across 28 countries, employing approx. 40,300 people.
About HESS AG
HESS AG, founded in 1882 and headquartered in Bellach, Switzerland, designs and manufactures buses, trolleybuses, commercial vehicles and modular e-bus systems, including the CO-BOLT platform and the electric lighTram. The company serves public transit, urban mobility and commercial transport markets worldwide. Together with its licensees, HESS produces about 2,400 buses each year. A fifth-generation, family-run business, the company employs about 1,100 people globally and reports annual group sales of about USD 200M.