Bombardier will break new ground early this year with its plan to enter the bus market with the launch of two commercial trials of electric-powered vehicles.

Financial Times reports that the Canadian aircraft and rail equipment maker, including trains and trams, is using a wireless charging technology it has developed to try to break into the bus market.

If successful, the move could help the group diversify from its two traditional businesses, where analysts have recently flagged concerns about performance.

The targeting of the bus market is part of a strategy being developed by Primove, a new business unit at the company, which has developed some of the most advanced wireless charging technology in the market for large electric vehicles.

The charging system is based on inductive loop technology – the same principle that charges modern electric toothbrushes – which manipulates powerful magnetic fields to recharge batteries without any contact.

Jérémie Desjardins, the head of the Primove unit, told the Financial Times that the idea dated back to 2007 when he and a team of engineers starting looking at how to use the technology to enable them to remove catenaries, which pick up electricity from overhead lines, from its trams.

“When we started on this five years ago we looked at how much power we could generate and how to control the magnetic fields. The magnetic fields need to be covered by the vehicle it is charging so that it is not ‘visible’ to anyone,” he said.

The team, based at Bombardier’s rail and tram research and development centre in Mannheim, Germany, found a solution but had to wait for improvements in battery technology before it could be put to commercial use.

Mr Desjardins said it soon became apparent that a slightly scaled down version of the charging system for trams could be used to recharge electric buses.

Bombardier has two contracts for commercial trials with local authorities in Braunschweig in Germany, where it has teamed up with Polish busmaker Solaris, and Bruges in Belgium, where it is working with Van Hool, a local bus supplier.

Mr Desjardins said the technology was meant to replace traditional diesel engines. As part of this move Bombardier is hoping to expand its offering to busmakers by drawing on its extensive expertise in electric rail technology to develop electric drive trains for buses.

Investors have been wary of Bombardier in recent years as it invested heavily in the development of its new C-series family of aircraft, which was designed to take on Airbus and Boeing’s highly successful short haul aircraft, the A320 and 737 families, respectively.