Passenger transport companies are pressing deadlines to modernise their fleets before the 2027 licence renewal competition in the south of Gran Canaria. Salcai, through the ITC, has put the new generation of Toyota fuel cells into the hands of CaetanoBus, which will come into operation in 2024. CaetanoBus, a Portuguese bus and chassis manufacturer that is part of Toyota Caetano Portugal and Mitsui & Co., has already supplied hydrogen buses to Alsa (1844 Group) and Salcai Global, which is launching the Arinaga-Maspalomas route (not line).
Nuno Lago de Carvalho, commercial director of CaetanoBus, says that the Canary Islands "is a key market for CaetanoBus, and we are very pleased to become market leaders. Hydrogen-based mobility is key to decarbonising large fleets, and crucial to combating climate change in a sustainable way."
The H2.City Gold is a standard low-floor van with an aluminium body and will be equipped with the new generation of Toyota’s fuel cell system, rated at 70kW. Toyota’s new hydrogen fuel cell system is more compact, lighter and even more efficient, offering greater energy density than the previous generation. In addition, it is now assembled in Europe at Toyota Motor Europe’s (TME) research and development centre in Zaventem, Brussels.
Thanks to this new technology, the CaetanoBus engineering and R&D team has also improved the integration of the new system into the bus, and now takes advantage of the heat given off by the fuel cell group to heat up more quickly and offer greater comfort to the passenger area and the driver's cabin. CaetanoBus also incorporates other improvements that will multiply the performance of the vehicle, such as even lower hydrogen consumption and greater driving comfort. This order, which will impact the economic capital of the Canary Islands, will boost sales of the CaetanoBus H2.City Gold model, the hydrogen-powered electric bus of which more than 115 units have already been sold in several European cities in Germany, France, Spain, Portugal and Denmark.
In addition, this order from the Canary Islands will strengthen Caetanobus' collaboration with the main bus operators in the field of hydrogen, especially considering that in Madrid, for example, the EMT has invested 10,8 million euros in the construction of a hydrogen station and the photovoltaic installation that supplies it. CaetanoBus, which is part of Toyota Caetano Portugal and Mitsui & Co, is a Portuguese manufacturer of buses and chassis. The company has a consolidated offer of vehicles for use in cities and airports, a result of its technical capacity to develop exclusive, customer-oriented mobility systems. CaetanoBus is also the manufacturer of COBUS, the world market leader in airport transport buses. CaetanoBus has focused on electric mobility since 1980. CaetanoBus and Toyota strengthened their strategic alliance in December 2020, when Toyota Caetano Portugal became a direct shareholder of CaetanoBus, to continue expanding sustainable mobility solutions.
