NEOMAN Bus Group
Press Information
Four buses with hydrogen internal-combustion
engines from MAN in regular service in Berlin

Vehicle nos. 3 and 4 delivered to BVG

Appearance at presentation of Tiefensee programme
Salzgitter/Stuttgart,
October 2006
NEOMAN Bus GmbH
Press + Public relations
Heinrich-Büssing-Str. 1
D-38239 Salzgitter
Please address questions to:
MAN Nutzfahrzeuge AG and NEOMAN Bus GmbH are continuing their
commitment to the HyFLEET:CUTE project which started at the beginning of
this year with the aim of promoting hydrogen technology. Following the
Thorsten Wagner
Tel. +49 5341.28-2268
Thorsten.Wagner@neoman.de
official announcement on the "Innovation programme for hydrogen and fuel-
Stuttgart: office
cell technology" by German Federal Minister of Transport Wolfgang
D-70567 Stuttgart
Tiefensee in Berlin on 30th October 2006, the Berlin transport authority BVG
Simone Setka
can add vehicle nos. 3 and 4 to its fleet. MAN Nutzfahrzeuge AG regards the
programme as a major step towards successful further development of this
technology in Germany and will continue its involvement both in hydrogen
internal-combustion engines as a technology for the near future and in fuelcell drive as a more long-term goal.
Altogether 14 MAN Lion’s City buses with two axles and a hydrogen internal
combustion engine will be delivered to the BVG and tested there in practical
service until the end of the project in early 2009. This future-orientated
technology, which is largely free of exhaust gases, is only a few years away
from its introduciton into series production. The fleet of 14 buses will be
made up of the four buses delivered to date with naturally aspirated ICE
engines and a further ten buses which will be equipped with turbocharged
engines and are scheduled for delivery starting in summer 2007.
Development of the approximately 200 kW turbocharged engine is one of
the main goals of the HyFLEET:CUTE project and is an important milestone
for this technology.
The first two vehicles have been in operation since the World Cup 2006 in
June and have meanwhile clocked up some 20,000 km. Over 10,000
passengers were ferried to and fro in the shuttle service between the airport
and the Olympic Stadium, and excellent consumption figures were recorded.
Vaihinger Str. 118-122
Tel. +49 711.7835-464
Simone.Setka@neoman.de
www.neoman.de
Press Information
NEOMAN Bus Group ________________________________________________________________________________ 2
In the ensuing day-to-day service, which has been largely without problem,
information has been obtained that will be useful in the further development
of the vehicles. An additional radiator was fitted, for example (the diesel
buses have only one), to take account of the generally higher combustion
temperatures in the hydrogen engines.
In the new HyFLEET:CUTE project the two future technologies using
hydrogen – fuel-cell drive and hydrogen internal-combustion engines – will
for the first time be combined in an international European project. The BVG
as a partner in the project put the first hydrogen buses into scheduled
service in summer 2006, thereby assuming a pilot role as the first major
customer to do so.
In the course of the project the BVG will set up a special maintenance shop
for the hydrogen buses at its depot in Spandau. In the immediately vicinity of
this depot TOTAL has opened a new filling station, which by the end of this
year will also have two stationary fuel cells. Open to the general public, this
filling station offers not only conventional fuels but also hydrogen in both
gaseous and liquid form. The gaseous hydrogen needed for the buses is
generated on site by a liquified gas reformer. The BVG, TOTAL and MAN
first started to gather experience with hydrogen buses in scheduled service
back in 2004.
Fundamentally speaking, the MAN hydrogen internal-combustion engines
work in much the same way as the proven MAN natural-gas engines already
in service throughout Europe. They too are in-line six-cylinder units that work
on the four-stroke otto principle. As the engine has been derived from the
series-produced natural-gas engine, many of its components have already
been tested over several years. Even today the MAN hydrogen internalcombustion engines have emission figures well below all EU limits on
exhaust-gas emissions fixed to date and have no problem in complying even
with the EEV standard.
With the information gained from this project the new technology will be able
to prove its suitability in day-to-day operation and ultimately be able to go
into series production. MAN expects the hydrogen internal-combustion
engine to reach this stage in only a few years' time, and for this reason
NEOMAN Bus GmbH is already negotiating with other customers throughout
Europe on the delivery of further vehicles from a small production run of 50
Press Information
NEOMAN Bus Group ________________________________________________________________________________ 3
starting in 2009. The first letters of intent have already been signed, e.g. with
the Greater Rotterdam authority on the planned procurement of buses with
internal-combustion engine.
The HyFLEET:CUTE hydrogen project covers 47 hydrogen-powered
buses in regular service in ten cities on three continents. The aim of the fouryear project, which is sponsored by the EU, is to develop and demonstrate
advanced hydrogen drive concepts for buses as well as technologies and
processes for producing and distributing hydrogen in the form of a sustained
supply channel.
NEOMAN Bus GmbH
Press/Public Relations (BVMK)
NEOMAN Bus in Salzgitter, Germany, is the Bus Division of the MAN Nutzfahrzeuge Group. The
company develops, produces and markets buses and coaches of the MAN and NEOPLAN brands.
In fiscal year 2005 the NEOMAN Bus Group with 8,000 employees sold more than 6,000 buses
and chassis, thereby generating a turnover of some € 1.2 billion.