CaetanoBus receives large order for hydrogen buses

60 hydrogen buses using Toyota fuel cells to be delivered to Deutsche Bahn in Germany
21/03/2023
CaetanoBus, part of Toyota Caetano Portugal, will provide 60 hydrogen-powered electric buses equipped with Toyota fuel cells to the Deutsche Bahn (DB) bus division DB Regio Bus. The first H2.CityGold city buses will be operating within a year.
 

Largest order for hydrogen buses in Europe

The contract signed by CaetanoBus and Deutsche Bahn is the biggest ever in Europe for hydrogen-powered electric buses. The order for 60 fuel cell city buses is part of Deutsche Bahn’s drive to push ahead with its conversion to a climate-neutral company in line with its goals to phase out its last diesel bus by 2038. DB Regio Bus is the largest provider of bus services in Germany, transporting around 470 million passengers a year.

Second-generation Toyota fuel cell technology

The co-branded H2.City Gold is a low-floor lightweight hydrogen bus with an aluminium body; 120 have already been ordered to operate throughout Europe. From 2024 they will be equipped with the second generation of the Toyota Fuel Cell Module. This latest generation is more compact, lighter, even more efficient and provides more power density than the previous one. Engineers from CaetanoBus and Toyota Motor Europe also enabled the heat released from the fuel cell stack to warm the bus up faster and provide more comfort to the driver and passengers. 

A bus for the future

The H2.CityGold buses are 12 meters long with 34 seats and 47 standing places. The passenger compartment has no steps and offers a 2-meter-wide space for wheelchairs. Numerous electronic safety systems are built-in, for example to warn of a potential collision with vehicles, pedestrians or cyclists. With one refuelling of hydrogen, the vehicles can travel between 350 (winter) and 550 (summer) kilometres, making them an ideal replacement for diesel buses  to operate in urban and inter-urban routes. Moreover, while a purely electric bus has a downtime of 4 to 6 hours to be fully charged, a hydrogen bus only needs about 10 min to be fully refuelled with hydrogen.

Accelerating local hydrogen ecosystems

Toyota strengthened its strategic alliance with CaetanoBus in December 2020, when Toyota Caetano Portugal became a direct shareholder of CaetanoBus to further expand its sustainable mobility solutions. Both CaetanoBus and TME cooperate with many like-minded partners across Europe with the aim of developing infrastructure and vehicle fleets to accelerate the expansion of hydrogen mobility. Such partnerships are necessary to achieve the shared ambitions of decarbonising transport and a variety of hydrogen mobility applications. 

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