Maybe you're saying to yourself: This technology is exciting enough, but why should I be interested in such a filling station, let alone these vehicles? It will be a long time before I have my driving licence, but even if I had one now, I wouldn't want to drive around on a forklift truck or in such a big car. And I’ve never seen a bus powered by hydrogen where we live. 

wasserstoffbus

Pioneering work today, normality tomorrow
If we want to identify the spirit and purpose of such a project, we have to think a couple of steps ahead: All these components are pilot projects, which have to prove themselves in everyday use before anybody can buy or use them. It is quite possible, therefore, that the very bus which MAN tested in scheduled services from 2005 to 2006 and which was refuelled with hydrogen at the H2argemuc pump could be taking you to school in the near future - totally emission-free and keeping your immediate environment clean. 

Better to be safe than sorry with hydrogen!
In this respect the technical inspection agency TÜV plays a major role: On the one hand, it ensures compliance with the relevant safety provisions applicable at a hydrogen filling station. On the other hand, it also puts individual components through a complete check-up on its own test benches. Thus, for instance, the hydrogen tank which Linde had developed for the BMW Group was subject to a number of really tough tests: It was destroyed using brute force and exposed to very hot flames for a number of minutes, but it acquitted itself admirably even in these stress situations: There was no explosion, but merely the controlled release of hydrogen pressure through the safety valves.

tuev

Many ways to achieve a common goal
The majority of automobile manufacturers have decided to pursue a path using fuel cells: In the fuel cell chemical energy is converted into electrical energy. 
BMW - one of the H2argemuc partners - is going to use the fuel cell, but "only" for the on-board power supply. The vehicle itself will be powered by hydrogen, which just like petrol is burnt in the internal combustion engine and releases its energy; hydrogen is mixed with air and fed into the motor cylinders, the gas mixture is then ignited by a spark plug. And during this combustion hydrogen and oxygen combine again to form … water! Thus creating enough energy to move the pistons. 
As long as there is no network with hydrogen filling stations, the vehicles will be fitted with a so-called bivalent internal combustion engine: If the hydrogen has been used up and there is no suitable filling station in sight, the vehicle simply switches over to petrol mode. Naturally this means that there are two fuel tanks and less space in the luggage compartment.

bmw-rover mini

No infrastructure, no movement
Whether hydrogen may be used on a large scale as a fuel for engines also depends on the availability of hydrogen. Nobody wants to set off in an environmentally-friendly car to be left stranded by the side of the road because there is no filling station with hydrogen pumps nearby. And thus we need a filling station network not just in Germany, but throughout Europe. 
For this reason the hydrogen project H2argemuc constituted a very important module in the establishment of hydrogen highways: The partners showed that such innovation is possible through teamwork between researchers, companies and political bodies.