Enceladus skrev: ↑måndag 24 november 2025 23:55
Solaris Is Winning the Wrong Race in Europe’s Zero-Emission Bus Market
Clean Technica skrev:As the bus market moved decisively toward battery electric platforms, Solaris’ position weakened. It dropped to fourth place in European battery electric bus registrations in 2024 with about 460 units delivered, behind Yutong, Mercedes, and Iveco. The company still delivered almost 500 battery electric buses that year, but competitors grew faster because they focused narrowly on one or two drivetrains. Solaris held the top hydrogen position by delivering more than 250 hydrogen buses, but hydrogen orders are a small fraction of total zero emission volume. Every engineering hour spent refining hydrogen integration was an hour not spent improving battery platforms. Every sales team working on hydrogen tenders was not working on the larger electric bus tenders that now dominate the European market. That opportunity cost shows up in market share, not in immediate financial losses.
[...]
In a pure market-share sense, Solaris is more exposed. Yet its existential risk is lower because it sits inside CAF, which provides financial insulation, broader institutional capacity and diversified revenue that spreads the impact of strategic missteps. Solaris also has a stronger mix of zero-emission products, including a stable trolleybus line and a solid battery electric offering, which gives it fallback strength even if hydrogen contracts disappear. Its risks are strategic and long term, not existential. New Flyer created a single point of failure by tying too much of its future to uncompetitive drivetrains in a concentrated market. Solaris may lose tenders and erode its position if it keeps spreading itself across too many technologies, but it is unlikely to face the same kind of cliff edge because its corporate structure and market environment give it more room to course correct.
Satsar Solaris på fel häst?
The Hidden Cost of Europe’s Hydrogen Bus Experiment
Clean Technica skrev:Poland matters in this story because it is not a marginal market. It is Europe’s largest bus manufacturing hub, home to Solaris, the continent’s dominant supplier of zero-emission buses, and a country that adopted generous subsidy schemes to accelerate fleet decarbonization. Poland did not test hydrogen buses as a pilot project or a symbolic gesture. It deployed them at scale, in real cities, under real operating conditions, with professional operators responsible for keeping buses on the road every day. If hydrogen buses struggle to make economic and operational sense in Poland, a country with manufacturing depth, political support, and experienced transit agencies, it is difficult to argue that they will succeed elsewhere in Europe.
Poznań provides a grounded example of what happens when a city commits seriously to both hydrogen and battery electric buses. The municipal operator runs one of the largest hydrogen bus fleets in Europe alongside a substantial battery electric fleet. This is not a comparison between different cities or different operating philosophies. It is a side-by-side test within the same organization, subject to the same labor agreements, route structures, and service expectations. Over time, the contrast became clear. Hydrogen buses carried higher fuel costs, exposure to hydrogen supply quality issues, and operational interruptions that required temporary withdrawal of vehicles from service. Battery electric buses, while not without challenges, delivered lower cost per km and higher availability. The comparison did not require ideology or advocacy. It emerged from internal performance data and day-to-day operational experience.
The economic picture sharpened when Polish researchers examined total cost of ownership using real-world inputs from the Upper Silesian Zagłębie Metropolis, one of the largest public transport organizers in the country. Their cost-benefit analysis compared diesel buses, battery electric buses, and hydrogen fuel cell buses over a 10-year horizon, assuming 60,000km per bus per year. The purchase price assumptions were €235,000 for diesel, €610,000 for battery electric, and €750,000 for hydrogen, converted from zloty at current exchange rates. Energy costs were set at about €1.15 per liter of diesel, €0.21 per kWh of electricity, and €9.20 per kg of hydrogen. Under those assumptions, energy cost per km was roughly €0.40 for diesel, €0.21 for battery electric, and €0.74 for hydrogen. When capital costs, operating costs, and monetized environmental impacts were combined, battery electric buses produced an economic net present value of about €14m for a 30-bus fleet, while hydrogen buses produced about €5.6m. Diesel buses remained negative. The conclusion was not subtle. Battery electric buses delivered more than double the net social benefit of hydrogen buses, while hydrogen remained the most expensive option to operate and the most sensitive to cost shocks.
Ja, Solaris satsar på fel häst. Warszawa
föredrar numera batterielektriska bussar - av en händelse från Solaris. För en gångs skull gäller inte
Betteridges lag!
dr Cassandra Nojdh skrev: ↑måndag 09 februari 2026 16:21
Överkomplicerade lösningar, ja. Linbanor är inte "flygande". Frågan är snarast om "detta koncept" skulle fungera överhuvud taget.
Tysk studie: Tydlig svängning bort från vätgas i lastbilar
Energinyheter.se skrev:Förtroendet för bränsleceller har därmed nästan halverats på fyra år, medan tilltron till batterielektriska fordon har ökat med 24 procentenheter. Sammantaget bedömer omkring 95 procent av företagen att batteridrift kommer att användas i vägtransporter till 2030. Ingen annan alternativ drivlina når i närheten av samma förväntningar.
[...]
Studien redovisar inga direkta citat från företagen om varför synen på vätgas förändrats, men forskarna pekar på flera möjliga förklaringar. Produktion av klimatneutral vätgas kräver mycket energi och är kostsam. Dessutom måste gasen komprimeras eller kylas till flytande form, vilket ökar energibehovet och ställer krav på infrastruktur.
[...]
Studien visar därmed ett tydligt trendskifte i branschens förväntningar. Vätgas ses inte längre som det mest sannolika huvudalternativet i den tunga vägtrafiken under kommande år, även om tekniken fortfarande anses kunna få en nischroll.
Även tyskarna håller på att vakna upp till det som resten av världen sedan en tid tillbaka kommit till insikt om, nämligen att batterielektriska fordon är framtiden.