The President of the Piaggio Group, Roberto Colaninno, and the Mayor of Lombardy's capital city, Gabriele Albertini, have just signed an agreement which calls for trials on the roads of Milan of a 'hybrid' Piaggio motorbike, called the 'HyS' with an engine that is able to run on both electricity and petrol. On the occasion of the signing ceremony, the Piaggio Group delivered to the city of Milan 'as a premier', the two new prototypes of the 'HyS' scooter, a revolutionary hybrid 'thermal and electric vehicle that the town administration of Milan is now to experimentally use, jointly with Piaggio with a view to developing a series of fresh initiatives involving two wheeled modes of transport with low-to-nil polluting emissions.

Piaggio and the Council of the City of Milan decided to launch the collaboration after setting up of a committee "that" - according to a joint statement - "is to operate over the span of a year in order to check and study certain proposed applications that lead to the use of two wheeled transport with a nil or very low environmental impact."
 

The experiment is set to last for a maximum of twelve months, during which time Piaggio will provide the vehicles and the necessary assistance and maintenance. The town administration, for its part, agrees to use the vehicles in the carrying out of its routine work, gathering data on the performance and functioning of the vehicles and supplying to Piaggio a complete technical evaluation.

PIAGGIO GROUP

Based in Pontedera (Pisa, Italy), the Piaggio Group is one of the world's leading manufacturers of motorised two wheelers and leader of the European market in this sector. Since October 2003 the Piaggio Group has been controlled by Immsi S.p.A., an industrial and property holding quoted on the Milan Stock Exchange and headed by entrepreneur Roberto Colaninno, Chairman of the Piaggio Group. Rocco Sabelli is Group CEO.

Piaggio's production includes scooters, motorcycles and mopeds in displacements from 50 to 500cc under the Piaggio, Vespa, Gilera and Derbi brands. The Group also manufactures the Ape and Porter ranges of three and four-wheel light goods transport vehicles. Another significant production and sales sector is that of engines, where Piaggio is in the forefront of innovation and research. The company possesses internationally recognised advanced technical and technological know-how.

The Piaggio Group today has factories in Italy, Spain, India and the People's Republic of China, and a sales network in 55 countries on every continent. In 2003 Piaggio sold 430,000 vehicles overall and had a consolidated turnover of 987.2 million Euro (+4.4 percent compared to the 2003 turnover of 945.8 million Euro). Innovation, creativity, design and concern for the environment are the values that have always driven Piaggio's research, design and manufacturing activity.

Founded in 1884 by Rinaldo Piaggio and managed by the Piaggio family until 1999, the company has operated in practically every sector of mobility in its 120 year history - from ship fitting to rail engine and wagon construction, from building aircraft engines and seaplanes to producing civil and military aircraft.

The Piaggio company's recent history is linked to light transport. With the launch of the Vespa in 1946, Piaggio anticipated an emerging need for personal transport that still characterises society and created one of the world's best known symbols of Italian style, a product that was and still is enormously successful, with over 16 million units sold to date.