[JayPrashanth]

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India's leading commercial vehicle maker and the world's 4th largest bus maker, Tata Motors, has teamed up with ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) to come up with a hydrogen powered bus. This hydrogen powered bus was demonstrated recently at ISRO's Liquid Propulsion Systems Center (LPSC) in Mahendragiri, Tamil Nadu.

The bus that was demonstrated at LPSC uses hydrogen stored in compressed liquid form, in bottles at the top of the bus. The liquid hydrogen powers the fuel cells to generate electricity, that in turn drives the electric motor. ISRO's involvement in this project entails the leveraging of the organization's hydrogen fuel handling capabilities into commercial applications such as buses.



Note: Tata Motors's Hydrogen Fuel Cell powered Starbus concept used as an illustration.

Notably, this isn't the first instance of Tata Motors using hydrogen to power a bus. At last year's Indian Auto Expo, the utility vehicle major showcased a hydrogen fuel cell powered Starbus concept. The demonstration of the hydrogen powered bus at ISRO's LPSC represents the culmination of the project that Tata Motors and ISRO entered into, in 2006.

The idea behind this project was to develop hydrogen fuel cell technology that could be safely and viably used in commercial applications. In the future, city buses in India could use hydrogen produced as by-products at refineries and fertilizer plants to power their fuel cells. Hydrogen can be used to power an automobile in two ways; 1: To power an internal combustion engine. 2: To power a fuel cell.

A hydrogen powered internal combustion engine produces more power than an equivalent petrol powered engine. However, hydrogen powered internal combustion engines do produce nitrous oxide tail pipe emissions. On the other hand, hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles emit water as the by-product of combustion, thus emitting no gases into the atmosphere.

This makes hydrogen fuel cell powered automobiles a greener option than the hydrogen powered automobiles with internal combustion engines. However, one advantage of using hydrogen in internal combustion engines is that the engines can be converted to run on hydrogen at a price that is much lower than what a fuel cell costs.

[RavenAvi]

Big thanks to Nikunj for sharing these spyshots taken near Sanand GIDC!

Tata Motors has started road tests of it's fuel-cell powered bus, developed in collaboration with MarcoPolo, running on hydrogen gas.

This particular un-camouflaged mule was being tested with a full load.

According to the feedback received, the motor was as noisy as a Volkswagen diesel engine with AC on at full blast.

[gururajrv]

Originally Posted by RavenAvi

This particular un-camouflaged mule was being tested with a full load.

Tata is surely stepping on pedal

According to the feedback received, the motor was as noisy as a Volkswagen diesel engine with AC on at full blast.

Marcopolo! Hmmm, IMO bit apprehensive because of the fact Marcopolo diesel powered buses didn't have a good run at all because of its noisy and polluting nature. I hope the former nature of the manufacturer is not seen in these fuel cell powered buses.

[speedguy]

Originally Posted by gururajrv

Tata is surely stepping on pedal



Marcopolo! Hmmm, IMO bit apprehensive because of the fact Marcopolo diesel powered buses didn't have a good run at all because of its noisy and polluting nature. I hope the former nature of the manufacturer is not seen in these fuel cell powered buses.

Marcopolo is a bus body building company. It does not make diesel engines. So for polluting nature Marcopolo can't do anything.
Tata always use its own engines for buses up to 180 HP. For more than 180 HP, Cummins engines are being used

[silversteed]

Originally Posted by gururajrv

Marcopolo! Hmmm, IMO bit apprehensive because of the fact Marcopolo diesel powered buses didn't have a good run at all because of its noisy and polluting nature

Originally Posted by speedguy

Marcopolo is a bus body building company. It does not make diesel engines. So for polluting nature Marcopolo can't do anything.
Tata always use its own engines for buses up to 180 HP. For more than 180 HP, Cummins engines are being used

The buses we see in India with Marcopolo badges are manufactured by Tata Marcopolo Motors Ltd (TMML), which is a 50-50 JV between Tata Motors and the Brazilian coach maufacturer Marcopolo S.A.

Tata uses 6-cylinder Cummins engines on all HCVs. They also have their 697-based engines, but the majority of their diesel HCV products come loaded with the Cummins 6BT 5.9L engines. The power rating starts from 135hp with nodes at 150hp, 180hp, 210hp and 250hp (not very sure if 240hp and 285hp are available in BS4 buses now), to the best of my knowledge.