Hi!
Firstly, I would like to appreciate your efforts in bringing news regarding all these new buses to this forum.
However, I have been reading many posts on this thread and would like to point out and correct the few factual inaccuracies that I have encountered here.
Before I continue, it is worth mentioning that I am currently working as a Product & Application Engineer in the Bus Division of VPL Limted (previously Volvo Pakistan Limited). VPL is the company that have actually imported all of the Volvo buses into Pakistan that you see here and sold them to local operators such as Daewoo Express. We not only represent Volvo Bus Company in Pakistan but also Sunwin (Volvo's Chinese Joint-Venture) and Golden Dragon in Pakistan. For further information, please refer to the links at the end of this post.
Now back to the matter at hand. There are two types of Volvo buses that have been mentioned in this thread, the ones owned by Daewoo Express and the ones by QConnect. Both are variants of the Volvo B11R chassis with different bodies. The ones owned by Daewoo Express were sold by VPL and their approximate price is 3 crore, 30 lakh PKR (not 1 crore 30 lakh as you mentioned). These Volvo buses have chassis and drivelines made by Volvo while the body has been built by Marcopolo which is a Brazilian company. Furthermore, these buses have Volvo's patented I-Shift transmissions which are actually Automated Manual Transmissions (neither fully manual nor fully automatic but the best of both worlds in terms of giving better fuel economy than a manual yet needing no more input from the driver than an automatic does). They have 12 forward and 4 reverse gears. Links with further detail are given below.
Similarly, VPL has a subsidiary company known as Premval that represents Golden Dragon in Pakistan. Golden Dragon is a Chinese bus manufacturing company that has no relation to Hino a post of your hints at. The bus in the pictures you posted is a Golden Dragon bus with model number XML6127J6 You may have heard that Golden Dragon has sold 40 buses to Daewoo Express last month via Premval. Press releases for this news and pictures have been shared below.
Additionally, I would also like to mention that the buses operating in all three current Metrobus projects have been sold by VPL. These buses are Sunwin's which is a Volvo joint-venture company in China. Other than the buses themselves, if you put the propaganda on the media aside, you'll see that the metrobus projects are derived from the concept of a Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS). Almost every major city in the world has one today and Volvo was one of the pioneers that introduced this concept in Brazil. Links below for further information.
Links for Further Information
Volvo Group Introduction: http://www.volvogroup.com/en-en/about-us.html
Volvo Buses Introduction: http://www.volvobuses.com/en-en/about-us.html
Proof of Volvo Dealership in Pakistan: http://www.volvobuses.com/en-en/contact/dealers-workshops.html (Search for Pakistan in Country and Lahore in City)
VPL Website: http://vpl.com.pk/index.php
Premval Website: http://www.premval.com/
Panasian Group Website: http://www.panasiangroup.com/prof.php
Sunwin Introduction: http://www.sunwinbus.com/about_eng.aspx?aboutsid=20100414194362632762
Marcopolo Introduction: http://www.marcopolo.com.br/marcopolo/
Golden Dragon Introduction: http://www.goldendragonbus.com/about.html
Volvo Buses explaining BRTS: http://www.volvobuses.com/en-en/our-offering/bus-rapid-transit.html
ITDP, USA explaining BRTS: https://www.itdp.org/library/standards-and-guides/the-bus-rapid-transit-standard/what-is-brt/
Proof of Bronze Rating of Islamabad Metrobus which puts it equivalent to the BRTS in Kuala Lumpur, Beijing, Los Angeles, Bangkok, Cape Town and Jakarta among others: http://www.brtdata.net/en/cities/param-quan.aspx?param=51
Volvo I-Shift Fact Sheet: http://www.volvobuses.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/VBC/Downloads/Volvo-I-Shift-Fact-sheet-EN.pdf
Regarding the 40 unit order of Golden Dragon Buses by Daewoo Express:
Press Release 1: https://www.pakwheels.com/blog/permval-delivers-40-golden-dragon-busses-daewoo-express/
Press Release 2: https://propakistani.pk/2017/07/27/daewoo-gets-40-brand-new-golden-dragon-buses/
By the way, these buses cost around 1 crore 75 lakh PKR.
Pictures:
