Seven of Vienna’s ten new hydrogen buses are sidelined because CaetanoBus cannot supply ordinary spare parts. Not hydrogen tanks. Not fuel-cell stacks. Not high-pressure valves. Door compressors and blind-spot monitoring systems. That is what makes the case important for transit procurement agencies. The reported failure is not exotic enough to … [continued]
Saarbahn’s newly opened hydrogen refueling station in Saarbrücken is the moment its hydrogen bus program stops being a procurement story and becomes an operating system. The 28 Wrightbus Kite Hydroliner fuel-cell buses now have a depot station, three 350 bar dispensers, storage capacity, delivery logistics, trained staff, safety systems, and … [continued]
Chatgpt generated a visual timeline of SunLine’s hydrogen refueling systems across multiple generations.
SunLine Transit Agency, which provides transportation for the large western California county that includes Palm Springs and Coachella, has spent a quarter century doing more than almost any transit agency in North America to try to make hydrogen buses work. It started hydrogen production and dispensing around 2000, has cycled … [continued]
Chatgpt generated California transit depot where hydrogen remains a niche beside a much larger battery electric fleet.
Ballard Power and New Flyer announced what sounds at first like a market-making agreement, a commercial arrangement for 500 fuel cell engines, or about 50 MW of modules, for hydrogen transit buses starting in 2026. On the surface, that reads like the kind of order that only appears when a … [continued]
Aberdeen’s hydrogen double decker buses are being withdrawn, and a German municipality was left with seven hydrogen garbage trucks that could not refuel. Paris saw Hype’s hydrogen taxi fleet collapse after years of public claims about scale. Liverpool is trying to convert its abandoned hydrogen bus fleet. More hydrogen fleets … [continued]
Doing the math on Aberdeen’s abandonment of hydrogen buses led to a question from someone living in Düren, Germany about their hydrogen program. On the surface the situations look different. Aberdeen was a city trying to build a hydrogen ecosystem largely on its own. Düren, a district of about 270,000 … [continued]
Aberdeen’s decision to retire and try to sell its 25 hydrogen double decker buses closes a chapter that began with confident claims about global leadership in clean transport. The fleet was promoted as the world’s first hydrogen double deck operation and positioned as a foundation for a broader hydrogen economy … [continued]
Chatgpt generated illustration showing Poland’s experience with hydrogen buses as a high-cost detour that delayed faster cost reductions for battery electric buses.
Arthur Bus’s collapse in Poland marks the end of a story that had been quietly unraveling for some time. A hydrogen bus startup backed by public funding, municipal orders, and a planned manufacturing footprint failed before delivering a single customer vehicle. Twenty buses ordered by the city of Lublin were … [continued]
Dijon is a useful hydrogen transportation case study because it was serious, early, and well funded. This was not a symbolic pilot. The city committed real capital, built infrastructure, signed supply agreements, and intended to operate hydrogen vehicles at scale across buses, refuse trucks, and light municipal fleets. The intention … [continued]
Google Gemini generated this infographic illustrating the systemic failure where lobbying, bias, and institutional inertia distort decision-making to favor expensive hydrogen infrastructure over viable battery-electric solutions
The question comes up regularly when hydrogen transportation projects fail in ways that are no longer surprising, most recently in a comment on my article that lead with the UK’s HyRoad’s dissolution. Battery electric buses work well in city after city, while hydrogen buses struggle, stall, or collapse. Observers reasonably … [continued]
