JCB fits Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van with hydrogen engine

JCB has made a second major breakthrough in proving the wider appeal of hydrogen combustion technology by installing one of its super-efficient hydrogen engines into a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van. The white van retrofit was completed in just two weeks and one of the vehicle’s first test drivers was JCB chairman Anthony Bamford, who is leading the company’s £100 million hydrogen engine project (see video below).

The internal combustion engine used in the van is the same as those already powering prototype JCB construction and agricultural machines. It is the second Mercedes-Benz vehicle to be retrofitted with a JCB hydrogen engine; earlier this year a 7.5 tonne Mercedes-Benz truck was given the JCB hydrogen treatment.

JCB’s chairman Lord Bamford said: “We have 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. 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.”