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The Long, Expensive Goodbye to Hydrogen Buses
Essen’s 89-km refueling detour is just the latest warning sign of a doomed transit experiment
The latest hydrogen bus setback in Germany is no surprise. Essen and Mülheim are now stuck with 19 hydrogen buses that need to travel up to 89 km round trip just to refuel after the state of North Rhine–Westphalia withdrew its subsidy for further fleet conversion. The financial burden has left the cities scrambling for alternatives, but the real question is: why did anyone expect this to work in the first place?
This is just the latest in a string of failures for hydrogen buses. Wiesbaden scrapped its hydrogen bus program and pivoted to battery-electric buses instead. London’s hydrogen double-deckers proved too expensive to run, with Transport for London (TfL) acknowledging that the cost per mile was nearly double that of diesel buses, even with subsidies. A 2023 report from TfL revealed that the total operating cost of hydrogen buses was around £1.50 per mile, compared to £0.80 for diesel and £0.65 for battery-electric buses. The high costs, combined with refueling challenges and supply chain issues, led TfL to shift its focus toward battery-electric alternatives.
Even in the U.S., California transit agencies like AC Transit and SunLine have quietly scaled back…
