June 2008

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Say It Isn’t So: German bus and truck manufacturer MAN is denying a mid-May report in a British publication, Automotive World, that it is abandoning its development work on hydrogen “in order to focus more sharply on diesel power” - but there are apparently some caveats to that denial. For the record, MAN told H&FCL it is not abandoning hydrogen research - “no way” - but adding it will not start any new field trials with customers other than the ongoing ones in Berlin with 14 hydrogen i.c.-engined buses, 10 of them turbocharged. A company source explains that MAN continues to research fuel cell transportation but at present there isn’t anything new to report. However, in general, MAN does not regard hydrogen as top r&d priority and is focusing on diesel-electric hybrid power systems and on synthetic liquid fuels from biomass or natural gas. MAN’s top research executive, Prof. Karl Viktor Schaller, has said he doesn’t see any widespread use of hydrogen for MAN’s type of vehicles before 2050, but MAN goes to great lengths to point that this represents Schaller’s personal view and not the view of the company. Also, there are some rumblings in the underground that there may be some major internal realignments at MAN in the works: some activities such as trolley buses, and maybe hydrogen engines, may be spun off into a new entity that may be set up outside of MAN, with money from some so far unidentifiable East European deep-pocketed investor. Stay tuned.