Toyota co-brands zero-emission buses with CaetanoBus

Toyota and Portuguese bus manufacturing firm CaetanoBus have announced the co-branding of their electric and hydrogen bus projects.

The co-branding will combine the e.City Gold battery-electric city bus and the H2.City Gold fuel cell electric bus.

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

José Ramos, Caetanobus president, said: “With this co-branding, we are reinforcing the long-standing partnership with Toyota to the whole zero-emission buses business. This allows us both to demonstrate on the one hand technical capability and complementary technology, and the other a true alignment towards decarbonization.”

The H2.City Gold is a hydrogen-fuelled electric bus that uses Toyota’s fuel cell system. The city bus has a range of around 250 miles (400km) and can be refuelled in under nine minutes. The vehicle showcases the complementary technologies and engineering capabilities of both companies and represents the first step in the co-branding strategy, which also includes the e.City Gold all-electric bus.

Central to the co-branding is a change in the vehicles’ badging to include both the Caetano and Toyota logos, acknowledging the strong visual recognition Toyota has among European customers.

Matt Harrison, TME president and CEO, added: “The co-branding of CaetanoBus zero-emissions buses shows the confidence we have in our latest investment and our long-standing partnership with Caetano. It also underlines the importance that Toyota places on developing zero-emission mobility beyond cars, on our path to carbon neutrality.”