By the end of March, Hess Portugal’s production line will be able to produce one bus every day, and by 2026, the Portuguese subsidiary of the renowned Swiss brand, based in Lousado in the municipality of Vila Nova de Famalicão, expects to double its turnover to €140 million and hire nearly a hundred new employees.
This growth reflects the increasing capacity of Hess’s Lousado factory – the only one outside Switzerland – to ramp up production. The response to the growing demand for electric city buses, commonly known as metrobus and now spreading across the globe as a mobility solution, has been led from Lousado, where the facility was established in 2022.
“Since then, we have been growing steadily,” explains Pedro Azevedo, the company’s general manager in Portugal. “We have increased production capacity, increased the number of employees and are set to double our turnover.”
“This is a good example of Famalicão’s ability to attract investment, but also to create the conditions for companies to continue growing,” emphasised the mayor, Mário Passos, who, on Tuesday 24 March, resumed his visits to local businesses at Hess Portugal, as part of the Famalicão Created IN itinerary, which highlights the region’s capacity to foster innovation, promote sustainability and boost productivity.
Buses leave Hess Portugal and Vila Nova de Famalicão bound for a vast network of cities around the world with metro bus systems. This includes Zurich, Geneva, Genoa, Clermont-Ferrand and Brisbane in Australia. Today, the buses leave Lousado with 80% of their construction complete.
“We started by producing only around 50%, but the production capacity, know-how and solutions we found here have allowed us to increase that capacity,” emphasises Pedro Azevedo. This is, moreover, an added value that the company’s managing director also highlighted.
“We are beginning to establish partnerships with other local companies to source components for our buses here, and Famalicão is, from this perspective, an area with a great capacity to meet our needs.”
Currently, just over three years after setting up in the municipality of Famalicão, Hess Portugal employs more than 300 people. In 2025, it recorded a turnover of 72 million euros, a figure the company expects to double in 2026.
