Carrosserie Hess AG (Bellach)

Vehicle construction since 1882 1882 Heinrich Hess founds a wainwright's shop and forge for the repair of all kinds of carriages in Solothurn. 1919 The first body creations are made for buses, trucks and cars. 1933 First buses with aluminum body. 1940 Biel and Basel order the first HESS trolleybuses. 1961 The first HESS articulated buses bring the longed-for increase in capacity. 1977 The first COBUS airport bus generation is developed. 1978 Prototypes and start of license construction in Australia and New Zealand. 1987 Construction of the world's first low-floor passenger trailers. 1991 Swisstrolley, the world's first low-floor articulated trolleybus, revives the market. 1994 HESS starts production of 3500 bodies for the DURO off-road vehicle. 1996 Start of license construction in the USA. 2003 HESS puts the world's first low-floor double-articulated trolleybus into operation. 2007 HESS launches the world's first low-floor double-articulated hybrid bus. 2008 HESS receives Entrepreneur Award for "Sustainable Entrepreneurship" from Solothurn government. 2011 The flexible BusZug with HESS low-floor bus goes into production. 2013 The first vehicles SwissTrolley4 were delivered with design front to STCL (Société de Transports en Commun de Limoges). 2013 First bus with stationary fast charging TOSA/ABB for TPG Geneva. 2014 Delivery of the first lighTram® 25 with design front to VBL Lucerne. 2017 Lighthouse project SwissTrolleyplus with support from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy and ETH Zurich. 2017 Start of series production of lighTram® 19 DC with deliveries for the cities of Bern and Biel. 2018 Conversion of TPG Geneva's diesel bus line 23 to an e-bus system with 12 lighTram® 19 TOSA and charging stations along the lines. 2018 Start of series production of lighTram® 25 DC with deliveries for the cities of Bern and Zurich. 2019 Conversion of BERNMOBIL diesel bus line 17 to an e-bus system with 5 lighTram® 19 OPP and charging station at the terminal stop. 2019 Conversion of gas bus line 4 from Semitan Nantes to a HESS e-bus system with 22 lighTram® 25 TOSA and charging stations along the lines.