By Thomas Fitzgerald, Philadelphia Inquirer

Before too long, you may be riding a bus that generates its own electricity and emits nothing but water vapor from the tailpipe.

SEPTA is spending $17 million on 10 fuel-cell electric transit buses that run on compressed hydrogen gas as part of the agency’s transition to a zero-emissions fleet.

“A lot of the advantage comes back to just the additional range that hydrogen affords the vehicle,” said Tyler Ladd, director of power engineering for SEPTA.

A fully charged electric battery bus can travel 150 to 200 miles, depending on the temperature and how hilly a route is, Ladd said. A tank of hydrogen, converted to electricity by fuel cells on board, will carry a bus 300 miles or more, he said.

It also takes 12 to 15 minutes to gas up a bus with hydrogen vs. a couple of hours to charge the batteries, he said. Battery charging also requires transit systems to build generating stations.

Almost all of the agency’s 1,447 buses are hybrids. Just 120 burn only diesel.

Battery-powered electric buses had been SEPTA’s preferred option for cleaner energy. But its first 25 all-electric coaches, bought in 2016, had to be pulled from the road in February 2020 after cracks were discovered in their frames.

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