Why Do Transit Agencies Keep Falling for the Hydrogen Bus Myth?

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In current months I’ve assembled a long, long list of hydrogen bus trials that ended up with the transit companies realizing what ought to have been apparent earlier than they began: hydrogen buses are much more costly and battery electrical buses are less expensive and extra dependable. Extra come out of the woodwork recurrently, for instance Essen and Munheim in Germanycaught with 19 buses that they need to drive an extended approach to refuel at nice general expense, one thing I wrote about this week.

The top of CleanTechnicaZach Shahan, was surprised by this as he was finalizing the story for publication, asking:

How is the hydrogen bus market not utterly lifeless by now?

Having had the dialogue with a number of transit professionals now, I can let you know what I take into account the explanations.

First, transit companies excel at preserving buses transferring and commuters glad, mastering logistics by many years of sensible expertise. They’re terribly good at transferring their passengers reliably day after day, month after month, and yr after yr on low budgets. But, on the subject of evaluating novel claims — particularly round rising applied sciences — they are often surprisingly weak.

As Daniel Kahneman highlights in Considering, Quick and Sluggishdecision-makers typically default to intuitive judgments (System 1 pondering), which may depart them inclined to accepting persuasive narratives with out ample important scrutiny. Businesses usually lack deep inside experience on technical innovation or power options. With out sturdy analytical capabilities, they grow to be reliant on compelling but doubtlessly deceptive tales.

Subsequent, transit companies pay meticulous consideration to day-to-day particulars — just like the repeatedly vandalized bus cease on route 47 — however hardly ever pause to rethink the larger image. Their pondering, formed by many years of routine, displays the intuitive, slender focus of Kahneman’s “System 1.”

The final vital shift most companies confronted was changing trolley buses with diesel fashions many years in the past — a transition largely pushed by persuasive suppliers, not rigorous evaluation. Since then, their consideration has stayed fastened on instant, native points moderately than broader strategic selections.

Transit companies undergo from what Kahneman calls “what you see is all there is” (WYSIATI): they’re deeply conscious of acquainted, seen issues — just like the route 47 bus cease — however don’t know what’s taking place within the subsequent city’s transit company, by no means thoughts China. To future-proof transit, companies must look past acquainted horizons and query comfy assumptions, transferring previous instinct and native crises towards evidence-driven, strategic pondering.

Then transit companies are sometimes instructed a compelling however deeply deceptive story: hydrogen buses are a easy drop-in substitute. Simply swap the car, change the gas, and every thing else magically stays the identical. It’s a seductive thought. Businesses, already targeted closely on every day operational challenges, hardly ever probe beneath the floor. The promise of simple options faucets into their intuitive need for minimal disruption, bypassing important evaluation and masking vital technical and logistical realities.

With out deeper scrutiny, companies danger investing in an answer that appears frictionless however, in actuality, calls for pricey and complicated infrastructure adjustments. Understanding this cognitive bias may also help transit leaders resist interesting oversimplifications and pursue genuinely efficient, evidence-based options.

Then there’s the fact of vary. Hydrogen fuel-cell buses typically promise spectacular 1,000 km ranges, interesting on to transit managers who really feel pressured to decarbonize their longest routes instantly. But most city transit routes don’t require that type of excessive vary. Whereas some obtainable battery-electric buses supply restricted ranges (200–300 km), many already comfortably serve common every day wants. Immediately’s battery buses routinely ship 300–400 km, with modern fashions like Solaris and BYD already exceeding 500 km — greater than enough for the overwhelming majority of city routes.

Again to WYSIATI. Transit operators see the hole between the longest route and present battery ranges and conclude they have to instantly undertake hydrogen buses. They overlook the regular, speedy progress in battery vary and falling prices, which is able to shut this hole fully inside just some years. A better method would contain electrifying common routes first, capitalizing on battery know-how at the moment, and phasing in longer-range electrical buses as know-how inevitably improves.

Then there’s winter vary. Transit managers accustomed to diesel buses hardly ever take into consideration winter heating. Diesel buses effortlessly warmth passengers and drivers with plentiful waste warmth from their inefficient engines — free heat, no additional value, no fuss. Gas cell buses do produce enough waste warmth, however right here’s the issue: it’s exceptionally costly warmth. Each diploma of heat comes from hydrogen — a gas that’s pricey to provide, retailer, and transport. In contrast to diesel, heating with hydrogen’s waste warmth is technically simple however economically painful.

Battery-electric buses face a distinct problem. Those with restricted vary see additional vary points additional as batteries energy heating immediately, slicing operational mileage exactly when vary is already tightest — in winter. That makes at the moment’s battery buses much less forgiving throughout chilly snaps.

Conventional bus makers principally aren’t insulating their buses extra and investing in warmth pumps, so they’re once more inefficient. As I famous not too long ago, Harbin in northern China, which has a two-month ice metropolis competition which is a global attraction, will get by simply high-quality with electrical buses which are insulated, have heat pumps, and have radiative electric heaters in with the passengers.

In fact, this can be a double-edged sword, as a result of gas cell and diesel buses need to energy air-con in the summertime with vary hits as effectively, and each lose vary in winter too, simply much less impactfully. This isn’t all a one-way bus route. However as soon as once more, lengthy vary buses exist, extra will arrive, and so they’ll get cheaper. All bus corporations, not simply BYD and Yutong, will determine insulation and warmth pumps.

To be clear, there have been some notable failures amongst electrical bus producers on each side of the Atlantic, which hydrogen lobbyists have been fast to amplify.

In North America, Proterra’s chapter left a number of transit companies cautious of battery-electric buses — although, maybe their skepticism ought to have targeted on the dangers of buying important fleet infrastructure from startups.

Equally, in Europe, Keolis Nederland confronted substantial reliability points with 250 BYD electrical buses delivered in late 2020. High quality issues and frequent breakdowns brought about operational disruptions, once more giving hydrogen proponents ammunition to forged doubt on battery-electric options. A lot of work was performed by Keolis and BYD to resolve them, BYD stood behind its contract, and compensation to Keolis was agreed to, with the quantity undisclosed. The fixes and BYD standing behind its merchandise don’t get reported, however the preliminary downside does.

This was additionally a comparatively remoted difficulty for BYD. In 2013, Schiermonnikoog launched six BYD electrical buses, marking one among Europe’s early adoptions of such know-how. An impartial survey in 2014 rated this fleet as the most effective within the Netherlands, highlighting passenger satisfaction with low noise ranges, ease of boarding, and general consolation. ​In 2015, Amsterdam Schiphol Airport included 35 BYD K9 electrical buses for passenger transfers between terminals and gates. There have been no vital stories of operational issues with this fleet. However transit groups and hydrogen lobbyists don’t discuss all of the successes with battery electrical and its dominance in markets globally, they discuss concerning the comparatively uncommon issues.

Lastly, transit agencies have been consistently misled by credible organizations — such because the IEA, IRENA, BloombergNEF, the Hydrogen Council, and CSIRO — which have repeatedly understated the real-world prices of hydrogen electrolyzers and inexperienced hydrogen itself.

These optimistic projections started round 2020, promising a way forward for low cost hydrogen, however they’ve been repeatedly revised upward every year. Regardless of these corrections, even the newest figures from these respected organizations nonetheless considerably underestimate precise mission prices. Transit companies, counting on these authoritative however flawed analyses, had been led to consider hydrogen buses would quickly be economically aggressive with battery-electric options.

Analysis by Visa Siekkinen and Andrew Fletcher reveals that actual electrolyzer tasks persistently value considerably greater than forecasts from revered teams. Fletcher highlights that present real-world system prices common round $3,000 per kW, practically double CSIRO’s projections. The constant underestimation stems from ignoring balance-of-plant bills, infrastructure necessities, and overly aggressive assumptions on learning-curve-driven value declines.

Transit companies have fallen sufferer to anchoring, a cognitive bias described in Considering, Quick and Sluggish. Anchored to early, overly optimistic hydrogen value projections from seemingly credible sources, these companies made procurement selections based mostly on unrealistic expectations. Hydrogen lobbyists bolstered this bias by frequently referencing these low estimates, successfully stopping companies from adjusting their expectations upward, regardless of clear proof that real-world prices are far greater. This anchoring has resulted in wasted assets and delayed transitions to confirmed, cheaper options like battery-electric buses.

Organizations like BloombergNEF have began admitting earlier projections had been far too optimistic — not too long ago tripling its 2050 hydrogen value estimates — however even these up to date numbers stay unrealistically low. The end result? Transit managers proceed chasing the mirage of low cost hydrogen buses, misallocating investments as an alternative of transferring ahead with demonstrably cheaper, confirmed electrical options.

We urgently want these main forecasting establishments to brazenly acknowledge their errors, recalibrate forecasts based mostly on precise knowledge, and transparently talk lifelike prices. In any other case, transit companies and policymakers will stay trapped in selections pushed by wishful pondering and cognitive biases moderately than rigorous financial evaluation.

In fact, in Canada there’s one other downside, which is that the transit “think” tank which is meant to look world wide at main practices, is meant to be analytical, is meant to be good at transformation and is meant to keep away from bias, the Canadian City Transit Analysis and Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC), is riddled with conflicts of interest and bias toward hydrogen.

So, the reply to Zach’s query is that transit companies repeatedly stumble into the identical entice resulting from overlapping cognitive and institutional blind spots. Anchored to early, overly optimistic hydrogen value projections from trusted however flawed organizations, they fail to regulate expectations as real-world prices grow to be clear. Their operational deal with day-to-day logistics creates tunnel imaginative and prescient — WYSIATI — leaving them weak to persuasive lobbying narratives promising simple drop-in replacements. Concurrently, their lack of in-house experience and analytical rigor leads them to belief reassuring exterior sources moderately than questioning overly optimistic claims.

These reinforcing components — anchoring, restricted analytical depth, and susceptibility to interesting narratives — lock companies into repeating pricey errors as an alternative of pivoting quickly towards genuinely efficient electrification methods.