Pareto Mobility LLC announced the opening of its 50,000-square-foot manufacturing and assembly facility at the Burroughs campus in Plymouth, Michigan. Led by first-generation immigrant and inventor AJ Kumar, the facility brings commercial bus manufacturing back to Michigan five years after Champion Bus closed its factory and moved operations to Indiana.
The facility will manufacture Pareto Mobility's Step-Free, a commercial bus designed for transit agencies, senior-living communities, healthcare providers and shuttle operators. The bus simplifies boarding for passengers using wheelchairs, walkers and other mobility devices with a fully flat passenger floor and no interior steps or floor transitions.
Flexible configurations accommodate seated passengers and up to four wheelchair users. Additionally, its low entrance and ramp-based boarding system eliminate the complexity of traditional wheelchair lifts.
"Bringing bus manufacturing back to Michigan will strengthen the state's manufacturing sector and create jobs," Kumar said. "We will sell Step-Free vehicles through dealers nationwide and deliver across the United States and Canada."
Pareto Mobility expects the Plymouth facility to handle engineering, assembly and production, while utilizing a domestic supply chain. The company did not disclose how many jobs the site would create.
Kumar holds seven U.S. patents, with four additional applications pending. The intellectual property covers modular vehicle architecture, wheelchair-accessible transportation systems, vehicle-flooring technologies and automotive engineering solutions.
