Fuel cell bus
[5] Hydrogen has a higher energy density than lithium batteries, making it suitable for heavy vehicles such as buses and trucks.
From the late 1980s, concern regarding diesel emissions from buses led to experimentation regarding the use of fuel cells to power vehicles.
Initial proof of concept work involved demonstrating that fuel cells could be packaged into a bus, and successfully power one.
[9] In 1998, Chicago and Vancouver began trials, using New Flyer Industries bus bodies and Ballard Power Systems hydrogen fuel cells.
[9][15] AC Transit in the San Francisco Bay Area began trials of a hydrogen fuel cell bus in 2002.
[17] The project was supported by a consortium of transportation operators, hydrogen infrastructure and fuel cell developers, universities and city authorities.
[25][26] In 2006, the Federal Transit Administration announced the National Fuel Cell Bus Technology Development Program.
[27] $49 million in federal grants would be provided to transit agencies to help develop and test hydrogen fuel cell buses, to improve the potential commercialisation of them.
[29] In 2009, BC Transit began operating fuel-cell buses in the town of Whistler in British Columbia, prior to the 2010 Winter Olympics.
The fleet of 20 hydrogen fuel cell buses was the largest in the world at the time, with the project costing around $94 million.
The programme, called "Ônibus Brasileiro a Hidrogênio" (Brazilian Hydrogen Autobus), includes three additional buses.
[35] In China, hydrogen fuel cell buses were used at Beijing 2008, Expo 2010 in Shanghai and the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou.
[38][39] In March 2015, Europe's largest fleet of hydrogen fuel cell buses entered service in Aberdeen, Scotland.
[45] In 2018, Toyota announced that they would be supplying their hydrogen fuel cell technology to Portuguese bus manufacturer Caetano, for buses to be sold in Europe.
[53] During the Games, over 800 hydrogen fuel cell buses and coaches were used from manufacturers Foton, Yutong, Geely and Zhongtong Bus.
[58] Trial operations of the ElecCity with Wiener Linien in Vienna, Austria were planned from November 2021,[59] with further tests in Germany also announced.
[66] In 2020, the city of Nanning in China announced they planned to replace their entire 7,000 battery electric bus fleet with better performing hydrogen fuel cell/battery hybrid buses.
[67] As of 2020[update], the NERL was continuing work to evaluate fuel cell bus projects in the U.S., with 64 buses in service in California, Hawaii and Ohio.
[68] This will allow a direct comparison between battery electric and hydrogen fuel cell buses, to guide future purchasing decisions in light of a desire for a zero emission bus fleet.
[69] AC Transit noted that they had the "most comprehensive zero-emission bus (ZEB) program in the United States", and had run 3,200,000 miles (5,100,000 km) of service with zero emission buses since 2000.
[69] In June 2021, the world's first hydrogen fuel cell double-decker bus (Wright StreetDeck Hydroliner) entered service with Metroline in London on route 7.
[71] The Hydroliner FCEV was developed as part of the European Union 'Joint Initiative for Hydrogen Vehicles across Europe' (JIVE).
[76] In May 2022, Regionalverkehr Köln [de], the public transport operator for Cologne, Germany ordered up to 100 hydrogen fuel cell buses from Solaris and Wrightbus.
[78] Mercedes-Benz announced that their popular eCitaro bus would be made available with a range extender using a Toyota hydrogen fuel cell.
[79][80] In July 2022, Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) ordered 47 fuel cell buses for the Grand Paris region in France at a cost of €48m.
[81] The managing director of IDFM stated that they wished to send a signal with their first order that bus manufacturers should "improve the technology, bring it to maturity, produce it [commercially] and we will be there".
[95][96] A 2023 research paper estimated that just 4% of zero emission vehicles will be hydrogen fuel cell powered by 2044, with a "low penetration of fuel cell city buses" located only in countries with hydrogen infrastructure and on bus routes where it is unfeasible for battery electric buses to operate.
Some transit operators have been able to use hydrogen by-product from industrial processes (such as the production of Polyvinyl chloride) to lower the cost.
[35] Campaigners have criticised the use of brown hydrogen to power the buses, in light of the carbon footprint created by the industrial process.
[7][103] In 2006, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory stated that the cost of hydrogen fuel was around $9 a kilogram, roughly comparing it to $2 a gallon for diesel.
