Merc Citaro fuel-cell-powered buses for Beijing for fuel-cell project
Three Mercedes-Benz Citaro buses are to be sent to China, project to examine practicality of fuel-cell
transportation.
OUR AUTOMOBILES CORRESPONDENT
25 July, 2005: DaimlerChrysler has handed over three fuel cell-powered Mercedes-Benz Citaro urban buses to the Chinese authorities, which will arrive in Beijing in September 2005. This is as part of a project to run the hydrogen-powered buses in Beijing streets, to gauge its utility in the Chinese markets. The buses were handed over in Mannheim, Germany to Chinese authorities on July 12.
The fuel cell powered buses will enter regular service towards the end of this year in Beijing. The Citaro buses will run on a busy 19 km long route in Beijing. The bus route passes the Summer Palace and the Olympic Games site.
The Citaro project aims to find the practicality of the fuel cell bus in Beijing roads and gauge Beijing's acceptance to the technology. The buses will run till October 2007.
Other objectives of the project are to gain experience with fuel-cell drive technology and using hydrogen in the transport sector.
Apart from DaimlerChrysler, other partners in this project are the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, the Beijing Public Transport Corporation, BP, Sinohytec and the Tsinghua University in Beijing. Forty percent of the vehicle costs are borne by the United Nations Development Program.
Due to increasing air pollution and consequent smog, the Chinese government has plans to ban vehicular traffic in select areas, during select time periods.
Since China has the world's largest population of 1.3 to 1.4 billion, the European Commission and the United Nations have decided to back this fuel cell project. The UN subsidies for the project are around $2 million. The EC is ensuring that the project will be fully integrated into the EU’s "Fuel Cell Bus Project" (CUTE), which has now extended outside Europe, so that the Chinese project partners are able to benefit from the experience gained during the operation of 30 fuel-cell-powered Citaro buses by ten European transport authorities in the last two years. These buses have already covered a total of more than 800,000 km and carried more than three mil-lion passengers. Three further fuel-cell Citaro buses have also been in regular service in Perth, Australia, since the end of 2004.
OUR AUTOMOBILES CORRESPONDENT
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