Toyota and CaetanoBus unveil hydrogen fuel cell bus with Mirai’s tech

Toyota Motor Europe and CaetanoBus have unveiled a new city bus that comes with Toyota’s fuel cell stack at Busworld 2019 in Brussels. Toyota has announced that the bus would go into production in Portugal in 2020. The new city bus is called ‘H2.City Gold’.

Working since 2018, the teams at TME and CaetanoBus were able to develop the new hydrogen fuel cell bus while demonstrating the good adaptability of Toyota’s fuel cell technology beyond the Mirai passenger car. The stack is located on the bus’s roof and is coupled to 5 hydrogen tanks with a total capacity of 37.5 kg, giving the bus a range of up to 400km (depending on driving cycle, AC and heating requirements). It can be refuelled with hydrogen pressurised at 350 bar in under 9 minutes (according to SAE J2601-2 & SAE J2799 (IR)), and its only emissions are water vapour. This gives city bus operators a zero-emission solution without compromise in operation due to charging time or high load conditions. The trial bus will be operated in various European cities over the next months, before commercialisation mid 2020.

In line with its vision of a decarbonised society – as stated in its 2050 environmental challenge, Toyota is promoting the application of its hydrogen fuel cell technology beyond passenger cars, including heavy duty trucks, small delivery trucks, forklifts and buses.

Dr Johan van Zyl, TME president and CEO, said, “Thanks to their longstanding relationship with Toyota, their understanding of market requirements and their technical capabilities, CaetanoBus was the ideal partner to start the development of our powertrain sales activities in Europe. I look forward to receiving the first market feedback from this initiative and the expansion of our supply business of hydrogen fuel cell technology.”

Jose Ramos, president of Salvador Caetano Industria, said, “We have a long-standing relationship with Toyota. Successfully expanding our partnership to fuel cells for our new city bus in Europe allows us both to demonstrate complementary technology and engineering capability that is world-class. This project will enable cities to rethink their future mobility and enhance quality of life.”