This week, from September 7 to 11, the Moscow Crocus Expo hosted the international exhibition ComTrans2021.
Most of all, the Kamaz and GAZ brands were represented with their trucks and experimental cars.
We will tell you about trucks in the next issue, and today we will talk a little about new buses.
The main hits of the exhibition were the first buses running on hydrogen. GAKH and Kamaz companies demonstrated their first prototypes of hydrogen-powered buses.
According to the principle of operation, these buses are already familiar to us electric buses, but having an electrochemical generator on board.
The generator is powered by hydrogen, generates electricity and then provides the electric motor with energy.
The hydrogen bus from GAZ is also built on the basis of an electric bus.
Now the buses will have a new CityMax designation.
The buses will have a new interior, with wider doorways and lighting on the ceiling in the form of bubbles.
The bus also received comfortable seats from the Polish manufacturer Ster.
All the main equipment of the bus is located on the roof. It includes cylinders with compressed hydrogen, the total volume of which is 1200 liters.
Also on the roof there are Canadian-made fuel cells and batteries, the capacity of which is already half that of electric buses.
The bus can travel 20-25 km only on electric batteries, and with fully charged hydrogen cylinders it will already travel 350 km.
A small hydrogen-powered bus was also presented, which was made on the basis of the Gazelle City.
In this bus, the cylinders are located under the rear seats and in a special box to the right of the driver.
The little brother of the big water bus can cover the distance of the same 350 km.
In the water bus from Kamaz, all the equipment is also installed on the roof.
Gas cylinders in their total amount have a gas reserve less than that of a water bus from the GAZ company.
But on the other hand, hydrogen has batteries of greater capacity.
However, the distance that hydrogen can overcome from Kamaz is only 250 km.
At this stage, it is quite difficult to compare buses, because we only have technical characteristics, and how these machines will manifest themselves in operation remains to be seen.
Special filling stations have yet to be built for these buses. Today there is only one such demonstration station in Chernogolovka.
The main disadvantage of water buses today is their cost.
If the cost of a bus with a conventional diesel engine is 12 million rubles, then the cost of an electric bus will already be about 30 million.
Well, the cost of the water bus is today more than 100 million rubles at all. So it is still necessary to assess the feasibility of developing this type of transport.