Hydrogen Fuel Cell-Electric Coach Driveline Coming From Wrightbus
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on RouteOne.
These are the first two paragraphs.
Wrightbus has been awarded up to £534,000 of government funding via the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) for the development, testing and validation of a hydrogen fuel cell-electric coach driveline.
The Ballymena manufacturer will receive the money from an £11 million pot administered by APC as a second round of the Advanced Route to Market Demonstrator scheme (ARMD2), which itself is part of over £50 million of public funding towards 30 “cutting edge manufacturing projects” in the UK.
I have never driven a coach, but I do feel that this project could be a winner.
- From riding in hundreds of their products over the years, I’m sure Wrightbus could produce a coach that satisfies the demands of coach companies and their passengers.
- Long routes like London and Scotland are popular coach routes and are of the order of 400 miles. Would passengers tolerate a thirty minute stop halfway to charge the batteries on an electric coach?
- Through, the experiences of the vehicle leasing company, I owned, I know that finance for quality coaches is not hard to come by and they are a good investment.
I also believe that a hydrogen-powered coach could be a flagship product for the hydrogen-powered transport sector.
We’ve all been on a motorway and seen coaches in the fast lane at 70 mph.
What effect will that have if the coach was emblazoned with “Green Hydrogen Coach – London-Glasgow Non-Stop In 7 Hrs”?
The Anonymous Widower 
I know we’ve all seen coaches in the fast lane of a motorway at 70 mph but its illegal on two counts:
1 they’re banned from the 3rd lane.
2 someone’s been tampering with the speed limiter that’s supposed to be set to a nominal 60mph.
Comment by fammorris | September 9, 2023 |
I just Googled it and didn’t get a definitive answer.
Comment by AnonW | September 9, 2023 |
Yes Googling doesn’t illicit what you’d call a definitive answer on lane usage, however I did come across this from the West Yorkshire Police
https://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/ask-the-police/question/Q590
Generally speaking coaches are either M2 or M3. This classification is part of EU legislation for vehicle types and since leaving the EU we have retained the designations. The current Driving Vehicle Standards Agency Inspection Manual for N2 and N3 states in Section 47, Speed Limiter that it should be set to “the required maximum set speed for the UK …..100 km/h or 62 mph”. BTW Heavy Goods vehicles are classified N2 and N3 and have a limit of 90km/h or 56 mph.
Comment by fammorris | September 9, 2023