model was sold in 2013, to an operator in Braunschweig, Germany. That is also, where the first articulated electric buses - the Solaris Urbino 18 electric - went to. In 2014 the producer supplied its innovative city buses Solaris Urbino 18,75 electric to Hamburg; these vehicles were the first to use a hydrogen fuel cell as an additional power source. In September 2014, during the IAA trade fair in Hanover (world première), and in October that year, at the Transexpo trade fair in Kielce (Polish premiere), Solaris presented the new generation of Solaris Urbino buses – initially only with conventional drives and in the length versions 12 and 18 metres. This time, the producer introduced more modifications to the design compared to the predecessor buses. The design was profoundly amended and many technical innovations were applied. Over the next years, Solaris showed off a range of new generation models (the firm started using that name instead of the fourth generation, to distinguish it from the older model), though it continued to concurrently manufacture vehicles of the third generation. In 2016 Solaris announced that the new generation Solaris Urbino 12 electric would compete in the “Bus Euro Test 2016” for the title Bus and Coach of the Year 2017. In the contest, the Solaris bus faced off against three competitors – the buses also evaluated in the test were the Mercedes-Benz Citaro C2 NGT, the Van Hool Exqui.City 18, the Irizar i2e and the Ebusco 2.01. Solaris turned out the final winner – thus becoming the first Polish bus to secure this title and the first electric bus ever to win this distinction. Solaris supplies complete buses, i.e. it does not use the chassis of other manufacturers. However, it does implement components made by other sub-suppliers. It installs diesel engines and CNG engines made by Paccar/DAF, Cummins, whereas the transmissions are supplied by Voith or ZF Friedrichshafen. In the case of hybrid drives, Solaris vehicles use BAE Systems. On 29 November 2016 Solaris became the leader of a technological cluster named “Polish Electric Bus - supply chain for electromobility”. The goal of the cluster is the design of electric buses, batteries and charging options. The cluster consists of: Akademia Górniczo-Hutnicza (University of Science and Technology), Politechnika Poznańska (Poznań University of Technology), Politechnika Warszawska (Warsaw University of Technology), EC Grupa, Ekoenergetyka Polska, Impact Clean Power Technology, Medcom, Instytut Napędów i Maszyn Elektrycznych