Another pointless pilot project? Or are hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles going somewhere?
Our perspective on hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles is no secret. We think they’re a massive #FAIL. But that makes the story below about a rather large order of such vehicles all the more interesting.
At least 180 new hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles will be deployed in Europe as part of the the new ZEFER (Zero Emission Fleet vehicles for European Roll-out) project — with 60 each slated for London, Paris, and Brussels — according to recent reports.
Of the 180 aforementioned hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), 170 will reportedly be utilized by taxi operators or rental/carsharing firms, and 10 will be utilized by police division fleets.
This new €26 million pan-European initiative will be focused around the collection of data relating to the possible future large-scale (commercial, that is) rollout of such vehicles in the regions in question, reportedly. In other words, the vehicles and refueling infrastructure will be subjected to high mileage conditions, and should thus provide useful information.
Green Car Congress provides more:
“These vehicles will be in regular use each day, creating hydrogen demand from each vehicle roughly 4 times that from a normal privately-owned car. This will help to ensure high utilization of the early networks of hydrogen fueling stations which are already operating in each city. This improves the economics of operating the stations and hence helps accelerate the commercialization of hydrogen as a zero-emission fuel for Europe’s cities.”
“ZEFER will be delivered by a consortium led by Element Energy, including hydrogen suppliers (Air Liquide and ITM Power Trading Ltd), vehicle end users (Green Tomato Cars, HYPE and the London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime), observer partners (BMW and Linde AG) and partners supporting the analysis and policy conclusions (Cenex and the Mairie de Paris).”
The first 25 FCEVs in question (of an eventual total of 180) are slated to enter service this week in London (UK) reportedly — with Green Tomato Cars being the firm responsible for that deployment.
Thoughts?