Wrightbus in administration

GM228 wrote: »

Not likely, rather it will be a Volvo problem if they don't come out of administration.

Sorry, I was writing very quickly and wasn't very clear, what I was saying was that even if Wrightbus don't emerge from this, then as the NTA's procurement and service contract for double deck vehicles is with Volvo, then Volvo would have to deal with the problem of what happens with parts and service thereafter since Wright are a subcontractor.

Streetlite's are a whole different kettle of fish of course because they were procured through Wrightbus directly, as the Streetdeck Hybrids were. The fact that Mercedes do some work on behalf of Wright though on integral products means that they're likely to be able to get some kind of support for some of the non bodywork side of things on those products, but obviously that'll be a discussion that the NTA might need to have with Mercedes about the terms of that.

The thing I'm wondering about is what Volvo will do to fulfil any outstanding contractual obligations - i.e what buses will be supplied to the NTA in lieu of any unfinished ones at Wrightbus due to the NTA (I guess the 50 remaining staff are there just to finished off what has been started, but there will be no more builds), unless the NTA and Volvo come to an agreement there will be outstanding buses to be built and delivered (how many of the 150 have been delivered this year).

And that's a big question. We've seen Volvo in recent years partner more with MCV as Wrightbus have switched to integrals so they're less dependent on Wright than they were in the past, but make no mistake, today is a blow for Volvo and ADL won't be delighted Wright are gone, but it will certainly strengthen their grip on the market.

Will the remaining staff at Wrightbus complete the order? Will someone buy them out? Will they just contract someone else to build them such as MCV? Or will they discuss the contract with the NTA about settling it in some way mutually? We'll have to wait and see. Maybe Volvo will be interest in Wrightbus? They've not really got a huge integral range themselves, and this might allow them into that market.

Contrails wrote: »

Sooo... we'll probably be seeing more of the AH class hybrid?...

The reason that Volvo kept winning the big contracts for vehicles here is because they have by far the best after sales and support network in the country which would help them considerably when it came to tender scores as pretty much all tenders for vehicles now are full service ones, that involves spares and maintenance as well as the supply of the vehicles themselves.

ADL really don't have that kind of scale, which is why you've generally never seen ADL integral products here in anything other than small numbers. The question is would they be willing to build on a Volvo Chassis or invest heavily in setting a support network up?