Karsan is looking to expand into North America. Recently, the Turkish company signed a distributorship agreement with Canada’s Damera Bus Sales Canada Corp. Shortly thereafter, Karsan delivered 6 e-JEST buses to Saint John’s, Newfoundland, whose public transit system became the first in Canada to feature low-floor electric minibuses. Now, Karsan delivered 15 more e-JEST vehicles to another major Canadian city, Oakville, Ontario, via Damera Bus.
Oakville is famous for having particularly narrow streets. E-JEST buses are expected to replace all of the city’s diesel buses. Anita Anand (Canada’s Minister of Defence / Oakville MP) welcomed the move: “The first group of zero-emission, battery-electric, specialized buses arriving in Oakville is an exciting milestone for our community that will bring us one step closer to a net-zero emissions future by 2050.” Karsan CEO Okan Baş: “We’re proud to play a pivotal role in the city’s switch to electric transit by delivering them their first zero-emission vehicles.” Karsan has been producing commercial vehicles since 1981, and its factory in Bursa Hasanağa has the capacity to produce about twenty thousand vehicles per year in a single shift. Hasanağa Factory is 30 km away from Bursa city center and is located on an area of 203 thousand square meters total, 99 thousand square meters of which is indoors.