Leverkusen’s public transport operator, wupsi GmbH, has awarded CaetanoBus an international tender for the supply of 10 electric hydrogen-powered buses. These units will be the latest version of the H2.City Gold model, which will run with the new generation of Toyota fuel cell stack. These hydrogen buses will be the first in wupsi's fleet and will be delivered until mid-2025.

CaetanoBus, which already has more than 90 hydrogen-powered electric buses sold just in Germany, now sees another city opting for hydrogen mobility and choosing CaetanoBus to supply the Hydrogen Fuel Cell buses. These buses, which are wupsi GmbH first hydrogen buses, will be equipped with Toyota's 2nd generation fuel cell stack and are scheduled to be delivered till mid-2025.

The H2.City Gold, co-branded by Toyota, is a standard low-floor lightweight bus with an aluminium body that from 2024 will be equipped with the new generation of the Toyota Fuel Cell stack with a nominal power of 70 kW. The Second-Generation of Toyota Fuel Cell System is more compact, lighter, even more efficient and provides more power density than the previous generation.

As recently presented at BusWorld 2023 in Brussels, the Portuguese OEM's engineering team is also innovating by implementing a heat recovery system that transfers the heat released by the fuel cell during operation to the interior of the vehicle, improving heating performance during the winter, with a major impact on reducing energy consumption. This novelty will directly reduce the consumption of hydrogen and improve the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) of a Caetano Hydrogen fleet.

This order reinforces CaetanoBus' good year in terms of sales of the H2.City Gold model, which has already been sold to Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Denmark. In addition, this order strengthens Caetanobus' position in Germany, which is currently a leader in the transition to zero-emission mobility, namely through the use of hydrogen. At the beginning of the year, the Portuguese OEM secured a major contract in Germany, having been selected to supply hydrogen electric buses to Deutsch Bahn, as part of the biggest ever framework agreement of this type in Europe.

Nuno Lago de Carvalho, Chief Commercial Officer of CaetanoBus, highlights: "Germany is a strategic market for CaetanoBus, and we are delighted to supply the first electric buses powered by hydrogen to the city of Leverkersun and to an important operator such as Wupsi GmbH. Hydrogen mobility is key to meet decarbonization targets of large fleets and an important alternative to scale up zero emission heavy-duty vehicles and fight against climate change in a sustainable way”.