MAN E18 gas engine (E1856): displacement, ratings and buses

The MAN E18 is a gas engine series of MAN Truck & Bus, used in its Lion’s City city buses. Its engine model is the E1856 LOH, a six-cylinder in-line engine of 9.5 litres (9,514 cm³) with exhaust turbocharging and intercooling that runs on natural gas and biogas. MAN says it launched the engine for the IAA 2018. MAN’s On-Road brochure lists it in two Euro 6e ratings, 206 kW (280 hp) with 1,200 Nm and 235 kW (320 hp) with 1,400 Nm, and MAN’s data sheets give it for the Lion’s City 12 G, 18 G and 19 G. On this site it is the gas engine of the MAN Lion’s City.

Status as of 26 October 2026. Read that day: the MAN Engines brochure On-Road Engines and Components, MAN’s Lion’s City G gas-drive page, the technical data sheets of the Lion’s City 12 G, 18 G and 19 G, and three MAN press releases of 2020. All of them are the maker’s own documents.

Maker, codes and layout

The On-Road brochure is a MAN Engines document; its back page names MAN Truck & Bus SE in Nürnberg, Germany, “A member of TRATON GROUP”, and carries the document code D114.650 but no date. Among the products that MAN says it offers “exclusively to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs)”, the brochure lists gas engines “in the power range from 206 kW to 235 kW”. The E1856 is the only gas engine in its tables: it appears in the gas column of the overview of engines for buses and on the brochure’s own page of Euro 6e gas engines.

The brochure’s key to its engine codes reads “E = Gas engine”, “L = with exhaust turbocharging and intercooling”, “O = for buses”, “H = rear installation” and “IL = in-line”. Its table names two engine models, the E1856 LOH 03 and the E1856 LOH 04, both “IL6” with a displacement of 9.5 l. The brochure does not explain the numbering of these codes.

MAN’s technical data sheets for the Lion’s City 12 G, 18 G and 19 G each give the engine type as “E1856 LOH Euro 6”, the configuration as a “6-cylinder in-line engine” and, in the row for bore, stroke and displacement, only the displacement: 9,514 cm³. None of the documents read gives the bore or the stroke. MAN’s Lion’s City G page uses the series name, “MAN E18 natural gas engine”, and lists it as a “Four-valve in-line six-cylinder engine”. MAN’s press release of 1 October 2020 speaks of the “E18 engine series”.

The brochure gives the same length, width, height and dry weight for both engine models: 1,318 mm long, 1,081 mm wide, 1,068 mm high and 882 kg dry.

Fuels and exhaust gas treatment

The three data sheets list the type of drive as “Gas” and the type of fuel as “Natural gas, biogas”. MAN’s press release of 1 October 2020 says: “The new E18 engine series can run on all well-known gas qualities from the natural gas network and on processed biogas.” None of the documents read names diesel, HVO or liquefied gas as a fuel for the E18.

On the Lion’s City G the gas is carried in “Gas cylinders type 4”, which MAN’s page lists as placed under the roof. How methane is carried on vehicles in compressed and in liquefied form is covered in LNG and bio-LNG trucks.

For exhaust gas treatment, MAN’s Lion’s City G page lists “EGR and three-way catalytic converter” for the MAN E18 natural gas engine and says the engine “is equipped with exhaust gas recirculation and a three-way catalytic converter”. In the brochure’s E1856 table the row for exhaust gas aftertreatment holds a dash for both engine models and names no system.

Versions and dates

MAN’s press release of 17 June 2020 dates the engine’s launch: “MAN Truck & Bus launched a completely new gas engine on the market for the IAA 2018 – the MAN E1856 LOH.” The same release calls it “the completely new E18 gas engine from the current MAN Lion’s City family”. MAN’s release of 1 October 2020 says that, with the launch of the new generation of city buses, the natural gas versions of the Lion’s City are now available with the E18 engine series. Its release of 16 November 2020, on a new automatic gearbox for MAN city buses, names “the 280 hp (206 kW) and 320 hp (235 kW), 9.5-litre E18 natural gas engine, which has also been newly developed”.

The emission version is named in two ways. The data sheets and the Lion’s City G page give the engine as “E1856 LOH Euro 6”; the brochure lists the E1856 LOH 03 and LOH 04 as “Euro 6e”, and its overview has no E1856 entry in the row for EEV. Euro 6e on a spec sheet stands for Euro VI step E, as the site’s page on the Euro VI steps sets out. None of the documents read dates a Euro 6e version, a second generation of the E18 or an end of its production: in them the E18 is one engine type, the E1856 LOH, in two ratings.

Ratings

The brochure gives each engine model’s nominal rating in kW (hp) at a stated engine speed and its maximum torque in Nm across a band of engine speeds. It defines the nominal rating this way: “The maximum engine rating is according to ISO 1585 89/491 EEC.” How kilowatts, horsepower and newton-metres relate is explained in reading truck power figures.

The brochure’s overview of engines for buses sums up the E1856 as 206–235 kW and 280–320 hp in Euro 6e. A note under that overview, which covers all its diesel and gas engines, reads: “Alternative engines without torque reduction or emission standard on demand.”

MAN’s vehicle data sheets give the same two pairs of figures. The Lion’s City 12 G sheet lists 206 kW (280 HP) with 1,200 Nm and 235 kW (320 HP) with 1,400 Nm; the Lion’s City 18 G and 19 G sheets list 235 kW (320 HP) with 1,400 Nm only. The data sheets give no engine speeds.

Trucks and buses on this site with the MAN E18 gas engine (E1856)

One model page on this site lists the E18: the MAN Lion’s City, whose page records the E1856 from MAN’s 12 G, 18 G and 19 G data sheets. The figures below are those of the model’s own page and the maker’s source that page cites, as that page records the engine; they are not the engine-level tables above.