A THREE-minute fill-up turned into a one-and-a-half hour wait for eco-friendly taxis which were driven on a 130-mile round trip to fill up in Swindon.

Three black cabs were driven on a diesel-powered car transporter to the hydrogen station at Honda in South Marston after the filling station near the Olympic Park was closed for safety reasons during the Olympics.

The cars were due to start filling up at 12.30pm but they were delayed for more than an hour because engineers from BOC, who operate the fuelling station, needed more time to get the station ready.

Nick Rolf, innovation manager for hydrogen systems at BOC, said: “We had some issues getting people on site and we had to wait for our system to get itself together to do the refuelling.

“Our engineers arrived a little bit later than planned and because we couldn’t get there on time and the transporter arrived a little later than planned we hadn’t had time to ramp up the system. “The system took longer to prime itself ready to dispense the hydrogen. These things work like petrol pumps. They need regular use but this doesn’t operate day to day. It takes time to go through the diagnostics. It is about getting the compressors up to speed.

“In the end it went well and all three were refuelled. It just happened later than planned.”

Intelligent energy, who design the fuel cells for the taxis working in partnership with Air Products, were delayed getting the taxis out of the transporter because they were not expecting media attention and had to wait for permission from head office.

The cabs, which have a range of 250 miles and are owned by HyTEC Consortium, are expected to be driven back to the station to fill up again later this week.

Paul Ormond, spokesman for Honda, said: “A number of car manufacturers, including Honda, BMW and Mercedez Benz, have all invested heavily in hydrogen as a fuel for the future.

“The Olympics provides a unique showcase for us as an industry to present this new technology to the world, which in this case is being done through these hydrogen fuelled taxis.

“The challenge faced was that security placed a restriction preventing refuelling of petrol and hydrogen vehicles within a certain proximity to the Olympic Park. “The restrictions relate to flammable vehicles, which meant the only source of hydrogen close to the Olympic Park in Startford was unavailable.

“Honda and BOC stepped in as we have the nearest refuelling facilities for hydrogen.

“The taxis are zero emission so there is no CO2 coming from them, nothing comes out except water. Clearly there are carbon emissions coming from transporting them but as it is zero coming from the taxis it pretty much cancels it out.”

The UK’s first open access hydrogen refuelling station, which is a venture between Honda, BOC and Forward Swindon, was officially opened at Honda in September.