Go4City: Fraunhofer & ELO Mobility to develop H2 buses
The Fraunhofer Institute for Transportation and Infrastructure Systems IVI and Berlin-based ELO Mobility have teamed up developing next-gen hydrogen-powered buses. They just launched the Go4City project with funding through the German government.
ELO Mobility has been specialising in finding new drives for buses and claim, the Go4City vehicles would consume “significantly” less hydrogen once developed. This was to help optimising range and operating costs compared to currently available vehicle technologies. The project also aims to produce entirely new models from 2022 with “optimal adaptation to specific OEM use cases,” says ELO.
For now, Go4City will see a modular drive system for two types of buses – 12-meter solo buses and 18-meter articulated buses. Findings and data also gained through sensors and actuators are to help establish both single vehicles and fleet operations.
ELO wants to achieve these advances by implementing an “adaptive low-wear fuel cell operating strategy with the creation of an intelligent operative fuel cell to battery power split system, as well as an optimized dimensioning concept of the components and other energy control systems.” Perhaps more feasible is the use of exchangeable fuel cells that ELO aims to reprocess to gain a “significant cost reduction,” which is crucial for technology acceptance.
For the cooperation with the Fraunhofer IVI, the institute already has experience with reliable information and assistance systems, digital platform solutions, and Big Data in public transport. Another project partner is the Dutch company HyMove, which has already been operating fuel cell buses for several years.
The German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) funds the Go4City project. The official project sponsor is Forschungszentrum Jülich. The program is coordinated by the National Organization of Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology NOW, and ELO Mobile said they had been supportive from ideation throughout now.
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