The former Yougoslavian truck-and bus brand TAM is comming back! On april 27 the Chinese CHTC company together with the Dutch-Austrian company DuraBus took over the remains of the factory and the brand in Maribor, Slovenia.
51% of the shares are in Chinese hands, the rest is for the Dutch-Austrian company. Focus is on elektric busses and trucks, and the first 65 people are hired. The plan is to start production with about 300 busses and 100 trucks. However the company went down under the name TVM the name TAM will be the name of the new company. TAM used to be a very big producer of trucks and busses with an anual production of 6400 vehicles in the seventies. The company went broke in 1996.
CHTC is the same Chinese group that owns the Dutch truckbrand Ginaf. Recently we had a short interview with the owner of the company, Mr. XiangYang Zhang. He said that the production of the big special Ginaf trucks is going to remain in Holland while the more basic vehicles for China can be produced localy in the future. He also said the step taking over TAM and the production of elektric busses in Slovenia is an important move to the future. CHTC is convinced elektrical power is the way to go for public transport in the future.