JCB has installed one of its hydrogen engines into a previously powered diesel Mercedes Sprinter van. The retrofit took two weeks and incorporated the same internal combustion engine used in JCB prototype machines.
One of the first test drivers was JCB Chairman Anthony Bamford, who is leading the company’s 100 million hydrogen engine project. “We retrofitted this vehicle with a JCB hydrogen engine to demonstrate how simple it will be to convert existing vans and to show that it is not only not only construction and agricultural machines that can be powered by hydrogen,” said Anthony Bamford, chairman, in a statement. “While converting vans will not be for JCB to do, it does prove there is something else other than batteries that can work very effectively.”
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JCB has manufactured more than 70 hydrogen internal combustion engines in a project involving 150 British engineers. The hydrogen engines now power prototype JCB backhoe loader and Loadall telehandlers. The switch to hydrogen is another breakthrough which underlines that this form of power could represent a much quicker way to reach global carbon dioxide emissions targets, according to the company. Hydrogen-powered vehicles can be refueled in a matter of minutes compared to several hours for recharging batteries.
Source: JCB
