| Since 2003, 30 Mercedes-Benz
Citaro city buses with fuel cell drive have been in operation in Europe
within the framework of the CUTE fuel cell bus project with support from
the EU; three more are in service every day in Australia. Meanwhile, these
33 buses have together clocked up a total of 70,000 operating hours and
passed the mark of one million km – a performance that by far surpasses
all previous trials of fuel cell buses.
The 33 Mercedes-Benz Citaro fuel cell buses have between them completed one million km in trials in 70,000 operating hours |
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Prof Herbert Kohler, head of the vehicle body and drive systems directorate and DaimlerChrysler environmental officer, stated: “The buses have convincingly demonstrated the reliability and robustness of fuel cell drive in various climatic zones and topographies. They have withstood the winter cold of Reykjavik and Stockholm as well as the heat of Madrid . They have performed well in flat terrain as well as with gradients of up to eight percent in Oporto and Stuttgart .”
At the end of 2001, DaimlerChrysler together with the major European cities of Amsterdam , Barcelona , Hamburg , London , Luxembourg , Madrid , Oporto , Stockholm and Stuttgart and various infrastructure companies started the CUTE project - Clean Urban Transport for Europe . Three more buses are on the road as a part of the ECTOS project - Ecological City Transport System - also supported by the EU, and another three buses are operating in Perth , the capital of Western Australia . Before the end of this year, three more Mercedes-Benz Citaros with fuel cell drive will be in service on the streets of Beijing.The first part of the project will be completed by the end of 2005.
The trials have given the developers of the fuel cell stack valuable information for the extension of fuel cell lifetimes. The performance of the current generation of stacks is well above expectations: more than 2,000 operating hours without any power losses. This brings fuel cell lifetimes even closer to those of conventional gasoline and diesel engines. The buses accommodate 70 passengers and have a range of about 200 kilometers. Their top speed is 80 km/h (50 mph). |
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