Vegas adds Ford hydrogen buses to fleet

Las Vegas adds two Ford H2 Ice E-450 buses to its fleet.

(Credit: Ford Motor)

Here's something you can brag about to your family the next time you get back from Las Vegas.

The city has added two hydrogen fuel buses from Ford Motor to its downtown bus routes. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman hosted an inaugural launch for the press on Monday.

The city of Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Valley Water District's Springs Preserve have already been participating in municipal hydrogen pilot programs. The Springs Preserve hydrogen filling station makes its own hydrogen from water and electricity generated by the station's solar panels.

Now tourists and citizens interested in hydrogen as an alternative fuel source can test out what it's like to ride in such vehicles themselves. The buses will be part of the City Ride program and offer express rides between the city's downtown area and the Las Vegas Premium Outlets shopping district.

The Ford E-450 model, referred to as the Ford H2 Ice, is not a hybrid using hydrogen to power fuel cells, but a vehicle with a 6.8-liter V10 engine that has been converted to run on hydrogen fuel. Las Vegas already has some trucks in its city fleet that were combustion engine vehicles converted to run on hydrogen fuel, but these are the first that will be frequented by tourists and average citizens.

The two buses, which are being leased for two years from Ford for $500,000, are being paid for by a U.S. Department of Energy grant that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid helped Nevada to get.

"First, they will encourage people to use public transportation downtown. Second, they rely on clean energy that won't pollute our air. I am proud to see the city of Las Vegas taking even more steps to reduce Nevada's reliance on oil," Reid said in a statement.

[Speiler9]

pre-emptive strike

On behalf of the right-wing neo-cons who have not yet posted but
almost always can't help themselves, I'll save them the bother by
pointing out that any environmentally-friendlier solution to
anything whatsoever is going to be a fraud, a communist
conspiracy and probably funds some kind of liberal subterfuge
that is designed to tear down the economy of the western world.
There you go guys, you don't need to post your comments now!

[Hoser McMoose]

Still the worst greenwashing scam around

Hydrogen as a fuel for vehicles is STILL a terrible solution from both the economical AND environmental standpoint. The design of this bus is totally nonsensical!

Consider that your is only about 65% efficient. Compressing that hydrogen isn't bad, probably 95% efficient. Now add in your hydrogen internal combustion engine which is only about 25% efficient.

Total efficiency here? About 15%, or much worse then simply using diesel fuel (about 25-30% efficient). "But the energy is free!" some will say? Well then why now use it where it's NEEDED, the electrical grid! Why reduce your efficiency by 85% just to move a vehicle to displace a small amount of gasoline or diesel use when you can pump that energy into the electrical grid and displace a LOT more coal? Coal is a MUCH dirtier fuel than either gasoline or diesel and causes FAR more environmental problems than hydrogen does.

Here's a MUCH better solution:

1. Use the solar panels to inject electricity onto the electrical grid.

2. Use electrical buses to take some of that electricity back off the grid.

No point-source pollution problems and probably a lot cheaper then $500,000, even with the $200,000+ that the batteries would cost. Between charging the Li-Ion batteries and running the electrical motors you're seeing about 90% efficiency, 6 times better than the Hydrogen ones.

What's more, this setup becomes a natural for regenerative breaking (something that would be expensive and hard to do with the Hydrogen ICE buses). This would further reduce loses in the actual operation of the buses, probably by a good 30% or more (the stop-and-go nature of typical bus operation lends itself very well to regenerative breaking).

End result of all this is you could go about 8 times further with this setup for a given quantity of solar panels than what the Hydrogen ICE buses can achieve.

As I said, the whole hydrogen vehicle idea is a big scam. The only reason why hydrogen keeps coming up as a potential alternative is because it's one of those technologies that can be eternally "15 to 20 years from mass production". That's what it was 20 years ago, that's what it is today and that's what it will still be 20 years from now. As long as we've got a "solution" available for the future we seem to be content to ignore the problems today.

[Hoser McMoose]

Typo corrections...

Hmm, apparently I need to re-read my posts a bit more before submitting them!

"Consider that your is only about 65% efficient."

Should read: "Consider that your electrolysis of water to hydrogen and oxygen is only about 65% efficient."

And:

"Coal ... causes FAR more environmental problems than hydrogen does."

Should of course read "Coal ... causes FAR more environmental problems than gasoline or diesel do."

[chrisfrary]

Please get facts

Well I agree with some of what you say, those same are arguments for this. We can develope cleaner ways of producing energy by moving the emissions from millions of vehicles to several hundred plants which have stricter guidelines on how much carbon dioxide they release. More could be done to produce more solar, wind, tidal and nuclear and further reduce this. You also argue that its inefficient in a combustion engine, correct. This is why they are developing fuel cells to prolong the travel. You make no mention of fuel cells in your argument. I believe that hydrogen is getting closer every day.

You may not agree and that is fine, but I would like to see efficiency from building new refineries and pumps with transportation costs and all. Cost comparisons across the board. Given that gas is already a massed consumed product, hydrogen prices could be brought down too right?

Batteries are extremely expensive and are also extremely toxic to recycle. Please consider the benefits and the cons when arguing for a point you just call a scam. What solution do you suggest? It can't all be bio-diesel and surely you can't believe ethanol which is largely produce from corn is the answer.