Whisper it for now, but there are hints that perhaps hydrogen fuel-cells are starting to emerge as the winning zero-emission solution for the 2020s. A bit like those long distance Olympic runners who hang back until the final lap and then stride into the lead, the hitherto impossibly expensive hydrogen solution could be about to turn battery electrics into also-rans in the quest for superior air quality. Hydrogen buses have been a long time coming, apparently stuck in the commercially unaffordable prototype stage while hybrid electrics, overnight charged battery electrics and their opportunity charged counterparts have crept into production.
This despite the claims of hydrogen’s advocates that all they need are enough seedcorn orders to be able to put the technology into volume production at lower prices.
With two waves of Europe-wide JIVE funding promising to have that effect — so that those buses and others that follow them no longer to come with a price tag that suggests the customer might be paying for a small power station — the day of the hydrogen bus has begun looking attainable. By the time that funding has bought its hardware, the UK alone should have respectable numbers of them in London, B…
