Batteries or hydrogen fuel cells? When it comes to which technology should replace fossil fuels in heavy-duty vehicles, freight forwarders have an important voice. When their fleet rolls out, they very accurately calculate costs and efficiency. Battery-powered trucks don’t always work very well. The high weight and relatively long loading times put customers off.
Vittore Fulvi runs a transport company in Perugia, Italy, with 60 diesel trucks and calculates that using electric trucks would reduce the load capacity by 15 percent. “We should buy more trucks, more than one extra for every ten we already have. That is not feasible,” says the business owner. As an alternative, he is looking at hydrogen-powered trucks.
The advantage of hydrogen-powered vehicles: they are considerably lighter, only need to fill up with a few kilos of hydrogen and can therefore transport heavier loads. In addition, the hydrogen can be refilled at filling stations in just a few minutes and the vehicles do not spend a long time at charging stations. In addition, significantly less rare earths are needed because batteries are not completely eliminated, but can be significantly smaller than in battery vehicles.
Development work is still needed
The downside: fuel cell technology requires even more development work than electric trucks. In addition, there is still a shortage of green hydrogen. This is relatively expensive – and a host of other interested parties, such as steel producers, who want to use it to replace coal and natural gas are pushing for it. In addition, the production of hydrogen by electrolysis costs a lot of electricity; the efficiency of fuel cell vehicles is significantly lower than that of battery cars, which has been criticized in particular by environmental lobby groups.
“The fact is that we need both battery vehicles and hydrogen,” Daimler trucking boss Martin Daum told Reuters. “Battery trucks need so much energy that I see bottlenecks in our electricity grid.”
For the British supermarket chain Asda, which currently supplies supermarkets from the central depots with 1,000 large diesel trucks, it is mainly the refill time and range that make the technology interesting. “I’m not completely closed to the batteries, but the advantage of hydrogen is that the vehicles don’t stall while charging and it gives a better range,” says fleet manager Sean Clifton.
Freight forwarder Horst Kottmeyer from Bad Oeynhausen in North Rhine-Westphalia and operator of a fleet of around 200 trucks agrees: “The customer sets the pace, with time windows.” There is not always time to charge battery vehicles – hydrogen trucks, the ability to fill up faster is an advantage.
Hydrogen vehicles and filling stations have been scarce until now
However, not only vehicles are scarce so far, there is also a lack of hydrogen filling stations. According to H2 Mobility, together with a number of other providers, it operates the largest network of filling stations in the world. According to H2 Mobility, there are almost 100 filling stations in Germany and only five in Austria. Another shortcoming: the prices for hydrogen. For one kilo you pay about 13 euros at H2-Mobility. According to industry insiders, for hydrogen to be worth it in traffic, the price must drop drastically – the threshold is mentioned as four euros per kilo. “The customer cares about the price,” says forwarding agent Kottmeyer.
But the expansion is coming. In the United States, funds are available under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to build gas station infrastructure, which experts say will boost the development of fuel cell commercial vehicles. The aim is to drastically reduce the price of hydrogen. The subject is also on the agenda in the European Union.
“Thanks to the IRA, things are moving faster in the US,” said Philippe Rosier, head of French fuel cell manufacturer Symbio, a joint venture between Faurecia and Michelin, which also includes the world’s third-largest automaker, Stellantis. Rosier said he wants to be ready for hydrogen-powered pickups in the US by 2026. The market for hydrogen-powered vehicles is likely to grow to two million per year by 2030 – Symbio aims for a market share of ten percent.
Asian manufacturers lead the way
Asian manufacturers are technology leaders: Toyota, for example, has filed thousands of patents for fuel cells and their components, while European and American companies are far behind. Technically, the difference in fuel cells between cars and commercial vehicles is small: in larger vehicles, more cells are simply combined, the structure itself does not change, unlike internal combustion engines. That is why Daimler Truck is working with Volvo on this subject. According to Daimler truck boss Daum, up to 15 billion euros must be invested in the technology within a decade.
It will probably be some time before freight forwarders can add fuel cell vehicles to their fleets on a larger scale. Battery-powered trucks will be the vehicles of choice in the coming years, says MAN technical director Zohm. The battery technology is so advanced in terms of technological maturity that it can be used in series vehicles – hydrogen will then be a topic for the 2030s. Together with Bosch, Faurecia and ZF, MAN is developing a fuel cell truck that will be delivered to five customers as a pilot project in mid-2024.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
