They keep falling for it because fixed route busses are the one use case where hydrogen could theoretically make sense. The bus can fill up far faster than it could recharge an equivalent battery. The bus gets lighter and more efficient as it uses fuel. And crucially, it can always fill up at the same place, which really ought to be the central depot where all the buses in that network return to.
But inevitably with these projects, the fueling station is instead where some random gas station used to be or in an industrial park or near a harbor, purely because that’s what made sense to the hydrogen supplier, who is probably hoping other customers will come along, even though they won’t.
And that’s before the high risk of the hydrogen supplier throwing in the towel, at which point the next nearest fueling station might be ridiculously far away.
If hydrogen buses are to have any future, it will have to be more centrally managed from end to end and it would probably still need some public funding to get off the ground. In the end, a lot places won’t bother with all of that when electric buses are “plug and play”.
> The bus gets lighter and more efficient as it uses fuel.
This argument is weak. To get any kind of reasonable energy density you have to compress hydrogen to 10,000psi. The tanks to contain a gas at that pressure are heavy enough that the weight of gas inside is almost negligible. Especially in ground vehicles which aren't hugely sensitive to weight.
I think the relevant numbers here (to evaluate the statement "The bus gets lighter and more efficient as it uses fuel.") would be the total weight when empty vs when full.
The tank weighs at least 10x what the hydrogen weighs, so yes it’s relatively little per trip, but it does add up over the lifetime of the vehicle and I thought it was worth mentioning. Same goes for very high voltage in BEVs. There’s weight savings to be had by maximizing voltage which allows you to reduce the thickness of the wiring. But the savings are small compared to the weight of the battery.
Aren't buses with a fixed route also a great candidate for battery swap solutions? As all the buses are managed by the same company, I would be curious to know if there are any hidden issues with this approach: while an bus is riding with a battery, the replacement battery gets charged, and when necessary you just swap the battery.
Maybe. There are certainly companies doing this, such as SUN Mobility and BYD. But I think battery swapping will remain fairly niche, unless and until a few standardized battery shapes, sizes, and connectors emerge. Fixed route buses might be able to rely on custom solutions but that will of course increase the price and make it less tenable for the long-term.
Would it be so hard to manufacture your own hydrogen on-site with the $20k plug and play electrolysis setups they sell to labs and industries? You can just plug into a high wattage outlet and let it work when the grid is at low demands
You can't drill for oil & refine it at a bus depot but for the case of hydrogen maybe the assumption that fuel has to come from a supplier can be challenged
I don't see any benefits from economies of scale for electrolysis
Hydrogen would probably be delivered on a trailer and maybe hauled by an electric vehicle. Ultimately I think it makes more sense if hydrogen could be produced in a more distributed way.
Do you think it could be useful for farm or construction vehicles?
I blame the transit agency for those missteps though - it doesn't have to be like that.
Take for example CUMTD (mtd.org), the transit agency serving Champaign-Urbana, a college town in Illinois with about 200k people. It's an excellent bus system, everyone in the city loves it, the people running the place always embrace new technology, and they actually have a hydrogen plant setup in their depot and the plant is powered 100% by solar energy: https://mtd.org/inside/projects/zero-emission-technology/
But inevitably with these projects, the fueling station is instead where some random gas station used to be or in an industrial park or near a harbor, purely because that’s what made sense to the hydrogen supplier, who is probably hoping other customers will come along, even though they won’t.
And that’s before the high risk of the hydrogen supplier throwing in the towel, at which point the next nearest fueling station might be ridiculously far away.
If hydrogen buses are to have any future, it will have to be more centrally managed from end to end and it would probably still need some public funding to get off the ground. In the end, a lot places won’t bother with all of that when electric buses are “plug and play”.