The ZEFER project (Zero Emission Fleet vehicles for European Roll-out) will deploy large fleets of 60 Hydrogen fuelled vehicles in each of three European capitals (Paris, London and Brussels).

These vehicles will be used where hydrogen fuelled vehicles could be the most valuable – for example fleets which drive long distances every day, which need rapid refuelling, and which operate in polluted city centres.

The €26 million pan-European initiative will introduce 180 fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) into a combination of taxi, private-hire and police fleets.

FCEVs run on hydrogen gas as a fuel. A fuel cell transforms the hydrogen directly into electricity to power the vehicle and produces no emissions other than water.

These vehicles will be in regular use each day, thus creating hydrogen demand from each vehicle roughly four times that from a normal privately-owned car. This will help to ensure high utilisation of the early networks of hydrogen fuelling stations which are already operating in each city.

The project is co-funded with €5 million from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU), a public-private partnership supporting fuel cell and hydrogen energy technologies in Europe.

The first 25 vehicles were put into service this week in London by Green Tomato Cars.

Jonny Goldstone, Managing Director of Green Tomato Cars comments:

“This is a truly unique project where investors in hydrogen technology, manufacturers of hydrogen cars and Green Tomato Cars as the end users, have come together with a commitment to make hydrogen transport work for the good of the people and the environment. We’d like to thank OLEV, the FCH JU and Toyota for their support in helping us acquire such a significant number of these innovative Mirai cars.”

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