FCC

JCB expands beyond construction

2023-10-09

JCB says it has successfully installed one of its hydrogen engines into a Mercedes Sprinter van, extending its sustainable energy technology into the commercial vehicle sector.

The retrofit took two weeks and uses the same internal combustion engine as the JCB’s prototype construction and agricultural machines. The converted van was previously diesel-powered. This is the second vehicle to be modified with a JCB hydrogen engine; earlier this year the manufacturer converted a 7.5-tonne Mercedes truck.

JCB Chairman Anthony Bamford, who is leading the company’s $100 million hydrogen engine project, was one of the first to test drive the van.

“We retrofitted this vehicle with a JCB hydrogen engine to demonstrate how simple it will be to convert existing vans and to show that it is not only construction and agricultural machines that can be powered by hydrogen,” says Lord Bamford. “While converting vans will not be for JCB to do, it does prove there is something else other than batteries that can work very effectively.”

JCB says the benefits of hydrogen are twofold: it could represent a quicker way to reach global carbon dioxide emissions targets, and hydrogen-powered vehicles can be refuelled in far less time than it takes to recharge batteries.