Basel builds Switzerland’s largest electric bus garage
Sunday 11th October 2026 on 15:15 in
Switzerland
Basel is building a depot with 144 charging points as it replaces its bus fleet with electric vehicles by the end of 2027, Swiss public broadcaster SRF reported. The new buses are quieter and more climate-friendly than the existing fleet.
A standard charge takes about four hours, while a fast-charging station can bring a bus to 80 per cent in 10 minutes, said Bruno Stehrenberger, director of Basel’s public transport operator, BVB.
The new Rank depot will have 144 bus parking spaces across four floors, each with a charging point. Construction workers are laying 68 kilometres of cable. The building will cover roughly the area of a football pitch, and two tanks will collect rainwater for the bus wash.
Stehrenberger described the garage as one of the largest and most modern in Europe. BVB plans to run its entire fleet from the depot. The switch to electric buses and the required infrastructure will cost 360 million francs, including 160 million francs for infrastructure. Although electric buses cost more to buy, Stehrenberger said they are cheaper to operate and maintain.
Michael Schallschmidt of the Swiss public transport association said Basel was taking a leading role, but many other operators also plan to switch their fleets by 2035. He cited transport companies in Bern, Zurich, Lucerne and Zug, as well as PostBus.
At the beginning of 2026, 850 of the 7,300 buses in Swiss public transport were electric, according to the Federal Office of Transport. That was just over 11 per cent of the fleet, rising to 18 per cent when trolleybuses powered by overhead wires are included. The federal office is helping cover some electric-bus purchase costs and said it had approved applications worth about 40 million francs.
The public transport association has set a goal of electrifying the entire sector by 2040 and said it was confident the target could be met. PostBus began operating electric buses in 2016, when it introduced two vehicles in Saas-Fee to carry winter sports visitors between the bus terminal and the mountain railways.