Belgian bus builder Van Hool has received an order from the Netherlands for twenty hydrogen buses. The client is Qbuzz, which provides public transport in the provinces of Groningen and Drenthe, in the Utrecht and Drechtsteden and Gorinchem regions. The order has a value of € 30 million or € 650.000 per bus, reports the Belgian business newspaper De Tijd on Thursday.

Van Hool is one of the largest bus manufacturers in Europe and a competitor of, among others, the Dutch VDL, and the German groups MAN and Daimler. The family business, with headquarters in the village of Koningshooikt in the province of Antwerp, builds around 1400 buses every year.

Share work in Macedonia

The ordered buses must be ready by the end of 2020 and will be deployed in Groningen and Drenthe. The chassis, body and layout of the buses are provided by the Van Hool branch in Macedonia. The fuel cell will be built in and the cabling installed in the Belgian factory in Koningshooikt, according to De Tijd.

In the engine of hydrogen buses, hydrogen is converted into electricity, which powers the drive. A hydrogen bus can fill up all day with 8 minutes and runs without emissions. The buses supplied by Van Hool have a range of 350 to 400 kilometers and can run much longer than battery-powered buses.

Second largest order

Qbuzz's order is the second largest for hydrogen buses at Van Hool. In February 2018, Van Hool received an order for forty such buses for the urban transport companies in Cologne and Wuppertal. Van Hool started in 2005 with the development and construction of hydrogen buses, first for the American and then also for the European market. 131 hydrogen buses have already left the factory.

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