Announcement this week of the 300 battery buses coming to London by 2024 is disappointing for hydrogen supporters, largely because the London hydrogen buses, supported by EU funds, have been running very well since 2010 but only a few were ever bought. Since the new battery buses are made by BYD in China supported by Alexander Dennis in England, there is the further problem that UK is way behind Asia in battery technology. Worse still is the misinformation that states the BYD bus can compete with diesel buses and is more efficient than the hydrogen bus. The fact is that my 2 ton hydrogen car, the Mirai has almost the same energy stored as the BYD bus, around 300kWh, and my car does 350 miles, whereas the BYD bus only does 150 km because it is a lot heavier than my car. The BYD bus is cheaper because it has only half the battery needed. If the correct battery size was in the BYD bus, it would be several tons heavier and would cost £30,000 more. It has been proved that the hydrogen bus completes about the same number of km as the battery bus for equal energy stored. You do a range test, which is quite different from an efficiency test. Efficiency means nothing in this context and it is essentially a lie to say that a battery bus is more efficient than a hydrogen fuel cell bus.
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