With ‘NesoBus’ from Swidnik in Poland, a new manufacturer of buses with alternative drive systems is entering the stage of bus manufacturers operating around the world. At ‘Innotrans 2024’ in Berlin, the company presented its ‘NesoBus H 2’, a bus with a hydrogen fuel cell, in the trade fair’s ‘Summer Garden’, with series production scheduled to start at the beginning of 2025. NesoBus is starting bus construction with realistic expectations: the company expects to begin with 100 buses per year.
Swidnik is a town with around 40,000 inhabitants in eastern Poland and the capital of the Swidnik district (powiat). A powiat is roughly comparable to a German administrative district. The town is located around 10 kilometres east of the city of Lublin, whose international airport is located in the Swidnik district.
The name ‘NESO’ is a Polish abbreviation for ‘Nie Emituje Spalin i Oczyszcza’, which means ‘no emissions, cleans the air’. The company was founded by the ‘Polsat Plus Group’, a group of companies from the media and communications sector, and the Polish electricity supplier ‘ZE-PAK’. However, these two ‘mothers’ of NesoBus are likely to guarantee the viability of the new bus manufacturer.
The first prototype was built in 2021 and also ran on hydrogen. Thanks to fuel cells, it is used to generate the traction current for the bus’s electric drive. The only ‘emission’ produced is chemically pure water vapour in minor doses. The fuel cell technology is supplied by Ballard, while the electric motor comes from ZF.
The bus on show at Innotrans was certainly characterised by an attractive exterior. The plastic bucket seats inside were upholstered in white artificial leather. This certainly looks chic, but white may be a little susceptible to soiling in daily use.
NesoBus emphasises that it doesn’t just want to produce for the European market and certainly not just for the Polish market.
Technical data:
- Length: 12,000 mm
- Width: 2,550 mm
- Height: 3,400 mm
- Fuel cell: Ballard (Canada) Type: FCmove-HD, max. output: 70 kW, operating temperature from minus 30 to plus 50 degrees
- E motor: ZF, max. power 2 x 125 kW, asynchronous portal axle
- Maximum range: 450 km
- Passenger capacity: 93 passengers, including up to 37 seats
- Three double-width doors
- Mechanical wheelchair ramp at the centre door
- WLAN installation, 5 G access
- USB charging plug
- five displays with information for passengers, for example about the route, sights along the route, weather report, current news, but also advertising possible (source of income for the transport company)
- Air conditioning and heating: electric with heat pump
- Cooling capacity up to 36 kW, heating capacity up to 47 kW
- Body made of stainless steel (standard 1.4003)
- Front axle: ZF RL 82 EC (independent suspension)
- ZF AVE 130 AvTrax drive axle
- LED headlights
- Cornering lights
- Twilight and rain sensors
- 360-degree monitoring of the bus’s surroundings (e.g. no blind spot = protection of pedestrians and cyclists next to the bus)
- Driver assistance systems: EBS, ABS, ASR, ESC and tyre pressure sensors
- Driver’s seat air-conditioned and heated independently of the rest of the vehicle
- Hydrogen tanks with pressure of 350 or 700 bar depending on customer requirements, modular tank design
- Fuelling time when completely empty: 15 min
- Tank capacity: 37.5 kg hydrogen
- Consumption: approx. 8 kg per 100 kilometres, in the SORT test, the bus even only consumed just 5.5 kg per 100 kilometres (SORT = Standardised On-Road Test)
- Total weight: 19,500 kg
