Zhongtong Bus Embarks on a New Journey, Striving for a Strong First Quarter
2025-02-11 Source：www.chinabuses.org
Summarize：In 2024, the transformation and adjustment of the transportation structure brought about new opportunities for the bus industry. The surge in markets such as high-end tourism, customized travel, and overseas exports ushered in a new upward cycle for the industry. Against this backdrop, Zhongtong Bus, the core vehicle business under Shandong Heavy Industry Group, achieved sales of 11,409 buses in 2024, marking a year-on-year increase of 51.49%.
In 2024, the transformation and adjustment of the transportation structure brought about new opportunities for the bus industry. The surge in markets such as high-end tourism, customized travel, and overseas exports ushered in a new upward cycle for the industry. Against this backdrop, Zhongtong Bus, the core vehicle business under Shandong Heavy Industry Group, achieved sales of 11,409 buses in 2024, marking a year-on-year increase of 51.49%.
As a representative domestic bus manufacturer, Zhongtong Bus, under Shandong Heavy Industry Group, leverages the group's synergistic advantages to seize opportunities during the industry's transformation period, accelerating its advancement into the high-end bus market and delivering a satisfactory result of "1+1>2".
Layout Synergy: Winning the "Class" of Tourism and Group Transportation Transformation
The grasp of opportunities is inseparable from scientific layout and planning. Through forward-looking layout in the bus sector, Shandong Heavy Industry Group has seized this new opportunity for the development of the bus industry, comprehensively promoting the transformation and breakthrough towards high-end buses, and achieving business upgrading.
As early as 2019, a development plan that had been brewing for a long time and aimed at transforming towards high-end products was first implemented at Zhongtong Bus under Shandong Heavy Industry Group. At that time, Zhongtong Bus had already completed the comprehensive research and development layout of the N-series city buses. Shandong Heavy Industry Group keenly perceived that with the transformation and development of the passenger transport structure, the industry's "quality improvement" must seek breakthroughs in the tourist passenger transport market.
According to the group's layout plan, Zhongtong Bus has conducted thorough research and analysis on the domestic and foreign tourist and group transportation markets, coordinated internal and external research and development resources, and initiated key research projects.
In 2023, the first model of Zhongtong Bus's newly upgraded H-series tourist and group transportation platform, the H9, was officially launched. Up to now, Zhongtong Bus has completed the family product layout of the H-series platform covering the 8-13 meter segment. Among them, the H9, H11, and H12 have become star products in the industry, deeply recognized and favored by users. In 2024, the sales volume of Zhongtong's tourist and group transportation buses increased by 67% year-on-year, with the H-series platform products accounting for 57.8%.
Currently, Zhongtong's H-series products have become a "beautiful scenery" witnessing the recovery of the domestic tourist passenger transport market, whether in first-tier cities in China or in famous scenic spots. At the same time, they have been exported to overseas markets such as Singapore, New Zealand, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and the UAE, becoming an important representative of China's high-end bus brand image overseas.
Forward-looking layout and quality upgrading are the keys for Shandong Heavy Industry Group to seize the development opportunities in the bus market and win the transformation period of the tourist and group transportation market.
R&D Synergy: Customizing the "Powerful Heart" to Achieve "1+1>2"
Beyond layout, the synergistic linkage among Shandong Heavy Industry Group's industrial chains and the "collaborative innovation" in key technology fields have given the bus business strong development vitality, achieving the effect of "1+1>2".
In March 2023, the Zhongtong H9 was successfully launched in Weifang, Shandong. As the location of Weichai Power, a subsidiary of Shandong Heavy Industry Group, the choice of launching the first product of the Zhongtong H-series platform here is self-evident.
The Zhongtong H9 is equipped with the Weichai 7H series engine, whose research and development almost started simultaneously with the Zhongtong H-series product platform, fully realizing the synchronous research and development and consistent calibration of the vehicle and the engine. Supported by the group's leading simulation technology and internationally leading test platform in the commercial vehicle field, the H9 ensures optimal efficiency from wind resistance, rolling resistance to engine programming and parameter matching, truly realizing a custom-made "powerful heart" tailored to the vehicle.
As we all know, Weichai engines have continuously broken the world record for thermal efficiency. The powerful fuel-saving performance, coupled with the joint synchronous calibration with Zhongtong Bus, endows the H9 with reliable and energy-saving quality characteristics. According to actual survey feedback from users nationwide, the Zhongtong H9 improves fuel efficiency by at least 3%-5% compared to similar products in the market, making it an undisputed reputable product.
Not only in power configuration, but the bus business of Shandong Heavy Industry Group also relies on the "Weichai + Fast + Hande" gold powertrain combination to carry out more than 30 types of simulation calculations, achieving optimal matching of the vehicle in terms of power and economy.
The customization of key cores has given Shandong Heavy Industry Group's bus products stronger performance and quality, establishing its unique competitive advantage!
Scale Synergy: Optimal "Calculation", More Than Just "+" Summation
For high-end transformation, the "synergy formula" of Shandong Heavy Industry's bus business is not only the integration of top-notch resources but also relies on the group's strong R&D and market scale, unleashing multiplied combinatorial effects.
In the synergy of Shandong Heavy Industry Group, procurement synergy is an important component. In this process, every link in the group's industrial chain participates in the synergy. Relying on the group's production and sales volume of millions of commercial vehicles, the procurement of key components for the bus business not only meets high-quality standards but also has more choices and stronger cost-reduction capabilities.
In addition, based on commonalization and modular design, the bus business can achieve joint development and rapid replication of mature components that have been verified in commercial vehicles. For example, with the rapid advancement of automation in the commercial vehicle sector, AMT transmissions have been equipped and applied on a large scale in the truck market. Through collaboration with SINOTRUK, a subsidiary of Shandong Heavy Industry Group, Zhongtong Bus has achieved joint development and research on AMT transmission products suitable for the bus market.
In October 2024, the Zhongtong H13 tourist and group transportation bus was officially launched, equipped with an AMT 10-speed transmission. It not only has good shift smoothness but also lower maintenance costs, and its transmission efficiency is improved by more than 7% compared to AT transmissions.
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