New green vehicles on the block: Green Tomato is adding 50 hydrogen powered cars to its fleet

The Mayor of London is implementing tougher measures to reduce London's air pollution but air quality in London remains a concern. Today temperatures in London soared to a high of 28.7°C following on from a sustained period of high temperatures across the country. This prompted London Air, the capital’s air quality forecasting and monitoring service run by the Environmental Research Group at King’s College London, to warn that the conditions were likely to lead to ‘extensive photo-generation of ozone’ and high levels of particulate.

Since 1 January 2018 all newly licensed taxis must be zero-emission and although the number of electric vehicles (EVs) in London has grown significantly in the last five years (there are now over 10,000 electric cars registered in London, a more than a tenfold increase since 2012), the vast majority of cars still have a conventional petrol or diesel engine causing toxic airborne pollution such as particulate matter (PM) and oxides of nitrogen. Back in 2015 Green Tomato Cars - a private hire company whose fleet primarily includes no-emission or hybrid vehicles - was the first in Europe to take on hydrogen fuel cell cars. On May 2nd, Green Tomato Cars announced that, delighted by the zero-emission, zero-problem performance of the two hydrogen-powered cars over the past two years, it will add a further 50 Toyota Mirai to its fleet. The innovative technology of Toyota Mirai relies on hydrogen fuel cell, which is effectively an electricity-generating device using the chemical reactions between hydrogen and oxygen to produce water and energy in the form of electricity. Because the hydrogen fuel cell cars emit only pure water at the tailpipe, they are classed as ultra low emission vehicles (ULEVs) like electric cars.

Back in March the UK government awarded an £8.8 million (€10 million) grant to purchase hydrogen fuel cell cars and support the expansion of the UK’s hydrogen refuelling infrastructure showing that hydrogen powered vehicles have the potential to become a significant part of the transport mix in a low-carbon future.

To learn more about hydrogen-powered cars: https://www.toyota.co.uk/new-cars/new-mirai/why-hydrogen.json and https://www.hygen.com/how-a-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle-works/

Green Tomato Cars: https://www.greentomatocars.com/about/

To learn about The City of London Air Quality Strategy: https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/environment/pollution-and-air-quality/how-were-cleaning-londons-air

To monitor the quality of the air in London: https://www.londonair.org.uk/Londonair/MobileApps/