20 units of hydrogen energy buses officially hit the road on December 29, 2018, marking a new upgrade of the public transport system in Henan province.

Compared with electric city buses, the fuel cell city buses boast short hydrogen refueling time and longer driving range. Based on the current specification of the vehicle, it takes 10 minutes to fully refueling the hydrogen, and has a driving range of about 500km.

"The fuel of the vehicle is hydrogen, which is converted into kinetic energy via the fuel cell built in the vehicle body. The fuel cell is provided with an air purifier. This kind of vehicles only generates water which is more environmentally friendly, and the exhaust water has reached the drinking water level after being tested," said Guo Yongshan, Yutong’s fuel cell project manager.

Two units of Yutong fuel cell buses have been put into operation on the Route 727 in Zhengzhou on August 16, 2018. This route is used as a demonstration operation route for hydrogen fuel cell buses in the city. So far, a total of 22 units of fuel cell buses are under operation.

Early in 2009, Yutong completed the development of the first generation of range-extended hydrogen fuel cell bus, opening up the development journey in the field of fuel cell buses. In 2014, Yutong became the first enterprise in China that got the qualification of fuel cell commercial vehicles. In 2015, Yutong took the lead in obtaining the first homologation of fuel cell buses in China.

Before the demonstration operation in Zhengzhou, Yutong has delivered 25 units of 12-meter hydrogen fuel cell buses to Zhangjiakou, which are expected to serve the Winter Olympic Games to be held in 2022.

It is learned that Yutong will continue to develop fuel cell vehicles with the forward engineering, make breakthrough in terms of core technologies including fuel cell vehicles, fuel cell system and hydrogen system, establish a completed test evaluation system of fuel cells, and achieve the industrialized promotion of fuel cell buses.