JCB hydrogen developments

23 October 2021

Last Tuesday, the day when the UK Government released more details of its plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions, JCB announced that it is investing £100 million on a project to produce internal combustion engines fuelled by hydrogen.

The company has set itself a target of the end of 2022 by which it will offer customers machines powered by the engine, news of which was reported on the blog back in May. 

JCB has previously announced a prototype hydrogen powered backhoe loader. A second machine – a Loadall telescopic handler – was unveiled this week in London at the Global Investment Summit, an event to promote UK investment opportunities to international businesses, attended by Boris Johnson. 

JCB’s hydrogen technology will also be on show in the Green Zone at the COP26 environmental summit in Glasgow next month. 

Speaking at the London meeting the Prime Minister said: “It was fantastic to see JCB’s super-efficient hydrogen engines, which could overhaul UK manufacturing, help us to rapidly reach our climate targets and ramp up the UK’s hydrogen economy – an exciting area that will be essential to tackling climate change, creating new jobs and attracting investment.” 

JCB Chairman Lord Bamford said: “Our sort of machinery will need to be powered by something other than fossil fuels. We make machines which are powered by diesel so we have to find a solution and we are doing something about it now.  We are investing in hydrogen as we don’t see electric being the all-round solution, particularly not for our industry because it can only be used to power smaller machines.”

He added: “These will be our industry’s first hydrogen engines, developed in Great Britain by British engineers. Hydrogen motors have the potential to help the UK reach CO2 emissions targets more quickly.” 

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