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GenH2 is the name of the concept truck from Daimler that runs on cryogenic liquid hydrogen.
Together with Volvo, Daimler wants to develop fuel cell drives that will be used in long-haul trucks from 2025.
Photo: Daimler
Climate neutrality is "the lunar mission" of the truck industry.
It sounds pathetic when Martin Daum, head of the world's largest truck manufacturer, Daimler Truck, speaks about the development of CO2-neutral trucks.
But the picture of a trip to the moon illustrates quite well the challenges the transport sector is facing.
However, truck manufacturers have not come very far on this path.
According to the Federal Motor Transport Authority, only one truck and two semitrailer tractors with hydrogen drive were registered in Germany at the beginning of last year.
More recent figures are not yet available, but according to all that has been heard from the industry, they would hardly be higher.
Emission-free trucks are urgently needed.
Road freight transport accounts for around a quarter of transport emissions in Germany with 41 million tons of CO2 emissions (2019).
In addition, truck manufacturers must reduce the CO2 emissions of their fleets in the EU by 15 percent by 2025 and by 30 percent by 2030 in order to avoid fines.
After all, Europe wants to be CO2-neutral by 2050.
Many in the industry consider hydrogen propulsion to be a realistic solution to all three problems.
100,000 hydrogen trucks in Europe by 2030
To bring this technology to the road, 62 companies - truck manufacturers, suppliers, energy providers and logistics companies - have come together.
Their goal: to have around 100,000 hydrogen trucks on the roads in Europe by 2030 and to set up 1,500 hydrogen filling stations.
Almost all established manufacturers and a number of newcomers are working on making hydrogen drives for trucks ready for series production.
Because what works with local trucks, delivery vans, garbage trucks, road sweepers or city buses - an electric drive with a battery that is charged in the depot - is probably not an option in heavy and long-distance traffic for the time being.
For the 40-tonne trucks that drive 150,000 kilometers or more per year and of which almost 60,000 are registered in Germany, a battery-electric drive has so far been too heavy, too big and too expensive.
Hydrogen is currently more of an energy source, especially since it can be converted into propulsion in two ways.
Either with a fuel cell that generates electrical energy from hydrogen, which then drives an electric machine.
Or by direct combustion in a conventional piston engine.
"The use of hydrogen in internal combustion engines is attractive because the technology enables rapid entry into hydrogen mobility," says Marc Sens, specialist in sustainable drives at the development service provider IAV in Berlin, who promotes this technology for truck manufacturers.
Fuel cells require high-purity hydrogen
Fuel cells, on the other hand, are capricious high-tech devices that have to become even more reliable and cheaper for use in trucks.
This makes it easier to convert existing truck engines to hydrogen.
“It's also about the hydrogen quality,” says Sens. “Fuel cells are sensitive and now only work with high-purity hydrogen.
An internal combustion engine, on the other hand, can cope with poorer hydrogen quality. "
In the medium term, however, the fuel cell is considered to be the ideal solution: Not only does it have a potentially higher degree of efficiency than hydrogen combustion.
There are also no nitrogen oxides in the fuel cell; the only waste product is water vapor.
Provided that “green”, ie climate-neutral, hydrogen is used.
A sufficient supply of green hydrogen, in turn, depends on the success of the energy transition - and is another mammoth task on the way to CO2 neutrality.
Truck manufacturers are currently developing fuel cells for use in commercial vehicles, often with specialized partners.
In addition, work is being carried out on hydrogen tank systems that are a good compromise between size, weight and cost.
With more effort, more hydrogen can be squeezed into a tank, but that can be expensive.
Numerous manufacturers have set themselves ambitious goals for hydrogen and started projects:
Mercedes
and
Volvo are
jointly developing a fuel cell system for trucks, series production of which is scheduled to begin in the second half of the decade.
Truck manufacturer
Renault
is also involved.
Mercedes has so far produced the GenH2 heavy-duty truck prototype with two fuel cells, two electric motors and two stainless steel tanks for 80 kilograms of liquid hydrogen, which is stored at minus 253 ° Celsius.
The Munich manufacturer
MAN
develops hydrogen combustion engines as well as fuel cell drives.
In addition, MAN's parent company
Traton is cooperating
with the Japanese truck manufacturer
Hino,
which belongs to Toyota,
on fuel cell
drives
.
Toyota
and Hino want to test fuel cell trucks with a total weight of 25 tons in practice in Japan from spring 2022.
The companies are also developing a fuel cell truck for the US market.
In China, Toyota is working with five Chinese companies in United Fuel Cell Systems R&D to develop fuel cell trucks.
The US company
Nikola
and
Iveco from Italy
want to start production of the Nikola Tre model in Ulm in 2021.
The truck is to be built in a battery-electric version and in a version with fuel cell drive (from 2023) and hydrogen pressure tanks.
Among other things, Bosch supplies fuel cells and central computers.
Hyundai
claims to be producing the first heavy-duty truck with fuel cell electric drive in series - the Xcient Fuel Cell.
The first copies are in use in Switzerland for haulage companies as well as the retail chains Coop and Migros.
Hyundai plans to use 1600 of these hydrogen trucks there by 2025.
The US company
Hyzon Motors
, which
specializes in fuel cell commercial vehicles, founded a
European headquarters
in Groningen, the Netherlands, last summer.
The first fuel cell trucks are to be built there this year
on the basis of a
DAF
tractor unit
.
The Swedish manufacturer
Scania
does not appear in this list - although it started a pilot project with five hydrogen trucks at the beginning of 2020.
Now Scania declared: Although hydrogen is a "promising energy carrier", they will concentrate on battery-electric trucks.
They are more efficient, more robust and cheaper.
The Swedes are treading a special path - as is the US electric car manufacturer
Tesla
with the semi.
It therefore remains to be seen whether and when hydrogen trucks will prevail.
And the discussion about the most environmentally friendly type of freight transport often ignores the fact that it is not just about the best technology.
"The CO2 problem will not be solved by switching to hydrogen trucks alone," says Jörn Seebode, Head of Commercial Vehicles at IAV.
"It's also about keeping an eye on the overall transport volume, and that ultimately means that we all have to change our consumer behavior."
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