Why is Santa Cruz County so bullish on hydrogen-powered public transit?

[Caribbeans]

Santa Cruz Metro recently made the largest single purchase of hydrogen buses in the country.

Why is Santa Cruz County so bullish on hydrogen-powered public transit?

Lookout Santa Cruz | CHRISTOPHER NEELY | Oct 2, 2023

As Mike Rotkin tells it, until recently, hydrogen never crossed his mind for powering public transit buses. And, as a regional transportation commissioner and a member of the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District board of directors, Rotkin is tasked to think about these things.

Electric battery power dominated zero-emission transportation discussions, in both public transit circles and the personal car market. Investment seemed to leave costly hydrogen behind as global attention turned toward electric vehicles and the falling costs of charging them.

Last year, Metro received a federal grant to buy three electric buses for the 17 route, which take commuters over the hill into San Jose and Silicon Valley. Metro had its sights set on buses from Chinese company BYD (though they are manufactured in the U.S.), which Rotkin (who also writes on politics for Lookout’s Community Voices section) referred to as “the best electric buses money could buy for our needs.” However, before putting millions of dollars down, a test drive was in order.

Metro filled a bus with sandbags to give it the full weight of its capacity, and sent it winding through the steep grades and notorious curves of Highway 17.

“We couldn’t get the bus to get over the hill at 50 mph, and once it got there, it didn’t have enough charge to get back,” Rotkin told me. The bus would need to charge for hours before it could return to Santa Cruz. Metro’s leadership understood another solution was needed...more
https://lookout.co/santacruz/civic-life/story/2023-10-02/hydrogen-powered-public-transit-why-is-santa-cruz-county-so-bullish

Can't order something that isn't on the menu. And hydrogen has, deliberately or not, been kept off the menu.