Abdul Aziz speaks to reporters after the handover ceremony of three hydrogen-powered Toyota Mirai sedan cars to the Deputy Premiers at Wisma Bapa Malaysia compound in Kuching today.
KUCHING (March 22): Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) will widely promote the use of hydrogen-powered public vehicles among the people of Sarawak, said its chairman Tan Sri Datuk Amar Abdul Aziz Hussain.
Abdul Aziz said this includes the use of Autonomous Rapid Transit (ART) vehicles and buses.
“We have one ART vehicle ready, that is coming in soon. It will be used on the highway in Samarahan and it will be on a test run for one year.
“The rest of the ART vehicles will start coming in next year, until we get all that we require for commercial operations by the end of 2025,” he told reporters when met after the handover ceremony of three hydrogen-powered Toyota Mirai sedan cars to the Deputy Premiers at Wisma Bapa Malaysia compound here today.
On how many of the ART vehicles would arrive next year, Abdul Aziz said they will come in batches.
“Bit by bit, maybe three or four units at one time,” he added.
In January this year, Abdul Aziz said SEDC Energy needs to produce hydrogen to power the state’s ART system in 2024.
“We will require about two tonnes of hydrogen a day for the ART next year and we need to ramp this up to five tonnes a day.
“As such, we need to produce electrolysers for that and we want to produce our own. We don’t want to import from other countries and add to the cost,” he was quoted as saying then.
When contacted by The Borneo Post last week, Sarawak Metro chief executive officer Mazli Mustaffa said the prototype vehicle of Sarawak’s highly anticipated hydrogen-powered ART is scheduled to be delivered to Kuching by the second quarter of this year.
He said upon arrival, the prototype ART will undergo Stage 2 of the Proof-of-Concept (POC) exercise.
“This POC exercise is scheduled to run by the third quarter of 2023.
“The ART vehicle is undergoing Stage 1 of the POC exercise in Zhuzhou, China,” he said.