Is there a future for hydrogen-powered buses?

BOC (British Oxygen Company) of Australia – part of multinational industrial gas company – has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Foton mobility, a Chinese company that manufactures trucks and buses, to develop the hydrogen bus sector in Australia and New Zealand.

Coincidentally, my daughter drives a Foton pickup truck with a Cummins diesel motor. But, why do I find this interesting?

Because at the same time, a French city has dropped its order for 51 hydrogen buses after discovering that battery-electric will be six times cheaper to run.

I don’t want to knock new and emerging technologies. We need all the solutions to climate change that we can get. Plus, I have endured and seen a lot of criticism of electric cars, solar panels and wind farms over the years.

That said, the transport use case for hydrogen seems to be slowly contracting towards heavier and heavier applications. Hydrogen doesn’t seem to have worked for cars. Hydrogen-powered trucks haven’t taken off (ask Trevor Milton of Nikola Motors about that one). Now it looks like buses may no longer be in the mix – and yet, BOC and Foton are still exploring it.

BOC said in a press release: “BOC and Foton Mobility will work together to develop operational and commercial hydrogen bus models across the supply chain including production, storage and refueling, right through to leasing arrangements. The partnership aims to develop pathways for scaling up hydrogen transport networks over the next decade.”

“BOC is delighted to be working with Foton Mobility to explore a variety of leasing arrangements for hydrogen buses and hydrogen refueling stations, and demonstrating a strong business case to government and private operators interested in decarbonizing their bus fleets,” said BOC director for strategy and clean energy Vesna Olles.

BOC parent company Linde has already installed 200 hydrogen refueling stations globally.

It’s all about the Euros. As The Driven reported on Friday, Michaël Delafosse, the mayor of the Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole stated: “…it would be six times more expensive than with electric buses. So, for the moment, we are giving up on hydrogen buses; we will see in 2030 if hydrogen is cheaper.”

And Julie Frêche, VP of the city in charge of transport and active mobility said that, “The operation of all hydrogen bustram would be 3 million euros per year against 500,000 euros with electric buses. Or 0.15 euros per km in electric against 0.95 euros on hydrogen. So six times less…”

Let’s hope that the accountants at BOC and Foton have very sharp pencils. They will need to if they want succeed in Australasia when even France can’t make hydrogen buses work even with all the EU subsidies (€18m of grant funding, and €8.9m of investment and loans).