The well-known spa town of Bad Nauheim is located fairly centrally in the German federal stat of Hesse in the district of Friedberg. With the incorporation of the former neighbouring town of Wisselsheim in 1972, the spa town’s city bus became an important part of the local public transport system.
The city bus operates four routes:
11: Usa-Wellenbad – Aliceplatz central stop – railway station – Nieder-Mörlen
12: Kaiserberg – Aliceplatz central stop – railway station – Steinfurth
14: Bodestraße – railway station – Aliceplatz central stop – Schwalheim
15: Railway station – Aliceplatz central stop – Wisselsheim – Kaiserberg
The Bad Nauheim municipal utilities do not own any buses. Instead, since 2014 at the latest, services on the four routes have been provided by buses from the Stroh company in Altenstadt (as well as Bad Nauheim in the Friedberg district) on behalf of the Bad Nauheim municipal utilities.
The Nauheim City Council decided that in future only battery-powered electric buses should be used on Nauheim’s city bus routes.
After Stroh won the tender to provide buses for Nauheim’s city bus routes until the end of 2034, it in turn put out a tender for the delivery of six electric buses for the city bus routes. The most economical bid came from the German subsidiary of the Egyptian bus manufacturer MCV (Manufacturing Commercial Vehicles), which is based in Bestwig in the Sauerland region. And so the contract was awarded to MCV: there are three ‘MCV C 107 EV’ (ten metres long) and three ‘MCV C 127 EV’ (twelve metres long) buses. Note: according to the contract with Stroh, Bad Nauheim municipal utilities can stipulate that electric buses must be used, but Stroh is free to decide which manufacturer to purchase these electric buses from.
The six MCVs have now been in service on Nauheim’s city bus routes since mid-September 2025 – more about the operation in Bad Nauheim HERE.
The charging park ‘am Taubenbaum’.
The six electric buses do not have to come from Altenstadt every day and return there in the evening. Instead, they have a ‘depot’ in the ‘am Taubenbaum’ industrial park on a plot of land between the railway and the road that was previously unused. It is fenced in (and monitored by CCTV) so that no unauthorised persons can stay there at night. The gate to the street ‘Am Taubenbaum’ opens at 7 a.m. and closes automatically at 5 p.m. At other times, only city buses are allowed to pass through.
The buses are not only parked on this site during the nightly break in service, but are also recharged here. This is done via cables and CCS combo plugs.
The charging park is operated by ENSEV GmbH, a subsidiary of Stadtwerke Bad Nauheim GmbH. The system was supplied by the Finnish company Kempower. From Monday to Friday, between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m., it is available not only to buses but also to the general public for recharging their cars, vans and lorries. This makes sense, as the city buses are on their routes at this time, so ‘foreign’ vehicles do not block the city buses’ charging spaces.
On the central island of the facility, there are three charging stations, each with two charging spaces, which can be used not only by city buses but also by private vehicles up to 7 metres in length. Two further charging stations, each with only one charging point, are reserved exclusively for city buses. This means that there are a total of eight charging points available – the electric bus fleet can still grow a little. – The charging capacity is up to 150 kW.
During the presentation of the facility, the managing director of ENSEV drew attention to an interesting detail. ‘It only takes 20 minutes to recharge a battery from 20% to 80%. But what does the driver do during those 20 minutes?’ ENSEV has come up with a clever idea: there are two car vacuum cleaners at the charging stations that can be paid for by card. ‘While the car is being recharged, the driver can use the time to clean their car a little.’ And Nauheim’s mayor, Klaus Kreß, added: ‘The bird of prey park is right next door. How about a short walk through the park while the car is charging here?’
