Plans for Glasgow City Council to buy 19 hydrogen-powered trucks at a cost of £7 million have been scrapped.

It is understood the vehicles won’t be delivered after the deal was cancelled due to technical and cost difficulties.

Now, the council intends to focus on using electric and low-emission diesel and petrol Euro 6 compliant vehicles instead. The £7 million, which was previously for buying the hydrogen-powered trucks, is now to be used to buy a range of electric vehicles.

So far the council have 328 electric vehicles including one electric refuse collection truck and 180 Nissan Leaf cars.

The local authority also uses 20 diesel and hydrogen dual-fuelled low-emission gritting trucks in the roads department.

A council official said the transition to electric vehicles has been for the most part “quite successful.”

The move is part of the transformation of the council’s entire fleet to zero-emission transportation with another 1,300 vehicles still left to go green.

The council officer told this week’s environment and liveable neighbourhoods city policy committee that "Two hydrogen RCV contracts were unfortunately cancelled by the supplier at the end of last year" due to "programming difficulties – partly "technical and cost."

He added it is likely to be after 2027 until there is enough green hydrogen available to meet demand.

He said: "The risk and the cost at this time outweigh the benefits that we can meaningfully make to improve the fleet."

He added: "Therefore modernising our fleet while continuing the transition to a zero emissions fleet remains our main focus. In the short term, we will be looking towards Euro 6 and electric vehicles."

He told councillors the medium-term goals will focus on electric vehicles.

He added: "We have aspirations to have hydrogen in that mix – but that will be in the longer term when the technology is in place."

The committee noted the changes to the fleet strategy.