Prague’s Trolleybus Data Show Why Hard Bus Routes Don’t Need Hydrogen

This is a public transit story, not a home upgrade one, but it's a useful data point on where electrification is heading. Prague's transit system has been testing whether hard bus routes—steep hills, heavy loads, frequent stops—really need hydrogen fuel cells, or whether battery-electric buses can handle them with some help. The city's transit operator found that on one demanding route, a bus system using overhead wire for part of the route (recharging the battery while driving, so the wire only has to cover the toughest stretches) came in about 10% above diesel cost per mile without subsidies, and slightly below diesel with them. Only about 40% of that bus's energy passed through its battery, compared to nearly all of it in a battery-only bus, which reduces battery wear and sizing needs.

Prague's regular electric buses did nearly as well, running close to diesel cost once subsidies were counted, partly because they logged more miles per year than the diesel fleet—closer to the range where the economics start to favor electric.

For homeowners, the relevance is indirect: it's another sign that battery and grid-based electrification keeps beating hydrogen on cost and practicality, even in tough use cases transit planners once assumed required hydrogen. That trend has echoed in home heating and appliances too, where heat pumps and electric equipment have steadily outcompeted alternatives once thought necessary for extreme conditions.