By Otsile Kadiege

Portuguese bus manufacturing company, CaetanoBus, has announced the co-branding of the battery electric city bus, e.City Gold, and the fuel cell electric bus, H2.City Gold, with automotive giant Toyota.

Co-branding history

Since 2019, TME has integrated Toyota’s fuel cell technology, including fuel cell stacks, hydrogen tanks and other key components, into the hydrogen city buses manufactured by CaetanoBus. More recently, in December 2020, Toyota Caetano Portugal (TCAP) became the direct shareholder of CaetanoBus to support rapid expansion from its core bus business into the development and sales of zero-emission buses.

Over the past year, the Portuguese bus company has reinforced its international presence with surging sales of its zero emission buses throughout Europe. This growth reflects the increasing recognition of CaetanoBus’ engineering capability and cutting-edge technology of its zero emission products in the competitive European bus market.

CaetanoBus H2.City Gold

The H2.City Gold is the CaetanoBus’ hydrogen powered electric bus using Toyota’s fuel cell system. The city bus has a range of 400km and can be refuelled in less than 9 minutes. This vehicle showcases both companies’ complementary technologies and engineering capabilities. It represents the first step in the co-branding strategy, which also includes the e.City Gold 100% electric bus. At the heart of the co-branding is a change of the vehicle badging to include both “Caetano” and “Toyota” logos, acknowledging Toyota’s strong visual recognition amongst European customers.

Local availability

Toyota SA says, it’s going to be a while before the CaetanoBus reaches our shores. For now, the car maker is waiting to see where their partnership with Sasol takes them. The partnership being referenced here is a pilot project between Toyota SA and Sasol for the development of green hydrogen mobility corridor between Johannesburg and Durban. Further, the partnership includes the possible installation of a hydrogen refueling station as well as the introduction of a hydrogen-powered truck by Toyota SA.