GDELS announced on January 26 that the Austrian Ministry of Defense awarded a contract on October 30, 2020 to General Dynamics European Land Systems-Steyr for the delivery of 30 Pandur 6×6 Evolution (Evo) wheeled armored vehicles.
The new vehicles are designed as armored personnel carriers (APCs) and can be quickly converted into other roles such as CASEVAC (casualty evacuation) due to their modular design. In addition to the 34 vehicles purchased in 2016 and based in the center of excellence at the Jägerbataillon 17 in Strass/Styria, the Austrian Armed Forces will operate a fleet of 64 new Pandur 6×6 Evo. Deliveries will be made in 2022 and 2023.
The Pandur Evolution (Evo) has been engineered by a team having more than three decades of experience of design, development, production, testing and logistic support of about 2,000 tracked vehicles. Therefore, the Pandur shares a lot of design loads and boundary conditions for the concept design, dimension and selection of mechanical and electrical/ electronics components and subsystems with the tracked vehicle families (ASCOD/ULAN).
The Pandur Evo has a more powerful 455hp engine than its predecessor, a better mine protection, more inner space, an anti-lock braking system for greater driver safety, an NBC protection system, and more capable electronics. The program cost is around EUR105 million (USD123 million).