In the first part of 2024, the global market for hydrogen-fueled mobile cars was only 5,621 units. During the same period, 4. 5 million battery electric cars were sold. It is transparent that hydrogen does not win for non-public passenger shipping. But many still argue that hydrogen is the way forward for larger cars, especially trucks. I spoke with Mike Nakrani, CEO of VEV, a subsidized electronic response provider through Vitol, about why even for trucks, hydrogen arguably wouldn’t be the right solution.
Nakrani has had a non-public delight with attempts to expand hydrogen fuel cells in heavy-duty vehicles, adding to a joint venture between Ford, Daimler and Ballard Force systems. After that attempt he pulled back in 2017, worked on a push for Bp. In either case, hydrogen did not seem to have the right characteristics for the market, while batteries were beginning to show potential.
“We saw that Battery Electric was winning the race for passenger cars in China,” Nakrani says. “We’re starting to see some of the Chinese products coming here to Europe. “BYD is making great strides, and Xpeng has just introduced its G6 in the UK to rival the Y model. Tesla. Circle of size of Relatives’ car and then in an SUV. and a much greater diversity than the original. Flexis, funded through Renault, also hopes to expand this space. “Now, electric cars are migrating to 16-ton, 26-ton, 44-ton, and 264-ton mining trucks. now they buy them and use them for their general employers. “
Nakrani sees a diversity of reasons why hydrogen testing is the right selection even for trucks. “Professor David Cebon explained that the elements of why the power of mobile hydrogen fuel is so much worse than batteries,” he says. Take one hundred kWh of electrical energy, through the time that passes through the mobile fuel procedure and take the vehicle and do the garage and transport, you have 23 percent. Therefore, one hundred oppose EV, where one Hundred becomes 69. In other words, an EV is 3 times more effective than a mobile hydrogen fuel electric power producer from a delivery point of view.
However, power is not the only challenge with hydrogen. “The challenges of the garage have not been overcome,” Nakrani adds. “If you keep it as a gas, you have to compress the hydrogen to a very high point to decrease the volume enough. Then you want to put it in a tank that can hold this high-pressure system. I haven’t noticed the generation that can do it in a charging design that works. A 250-bar compressed hydrogen garage, you still want at least 20 tankers for the same amount of power. Another option is liquid hydrogen, but that means you want to freeze it at -253c (-423f). D still wants 4 of those tankers to provide the same energy intake as diesel. The physics of doing so is a disaster. “
There are also some other difficulties. The third point is transportation,” says Nakrani. Because of those beloved garage responses and compression requirement, getting from point A to point B with a load layout that you can hope to be competitive is incredibly difficult. The truck OEMS have identified this, so if you reach out to senior in the truck market, they’ll all say there’s a position that hydrogen can play in, but it’s going to be very limited. It’s not said to be absolutely dead, but now everyone is saying EV will have at least 80 to 90% of the volume of heavy-duty trucks. So the challenge for hydrogen is that, if it’s a niche, the cargo will never succeed in the savings that you want to deal with your inefficiencies with.
“Many corporations have put a massive amount of cash into seeking to bend physics legislation, and they still haven’t gotten a grip on it,” Navrani says. “Toyota has spent billions on this. But the parameters have remained the same for a long time. There is a reluctance to let go, because they have invested so much. You can perceive what a convenient transfer would look like for the oil and fuel industry. They used to supply fossil fuels, now they supply this wonderful green fuel. But the business style remains the same, and consumers will likely like it too. They’ve been doing this for 60 years and it’s running for them. Government like hydrogen because they don’t have to worry about road prices, because they can simply that they can raise a tax at the pump and collect profits that way, just like they do with fossil fuel. There’s a genuine logic to the legacy industry that doesn’t work, so there’s an ongoing struggle for survival for some of them.
“The story to which everyone returns is that electricity does not work,” says Nakrani. “But that is no longer true. ” There are problems with the additional W8 of the battery that cuts the cargo capacity of the truck, however, it is imaginable that the vehicle does not want a battery as giant as the Oconsistent Witor thinks. “We believe they are doing 400 miles a day. But even in Germany, this is not strictly true for the law. If you think about speed limits in the United Kingdom, a heavy truck can travel to 56 miles consistent with the time. Motor force will have to have a minimum break of forty -five minutes after 4. 5 hours, and then, after 8 hours, you will have to have almost 8 to 12 hours of rest. miles of scope “. Even if someone executes a dual motive force system, the truck will be tied by a desk for a while, so the load capacity during that time is quite plausible. “
Toyota has invested a fortune in its attempt to make hydrogen paints as a transport fuel. . . [] (Photo via Yichuan Cao/Nurphoto Getty Images)
“I also didn’t see an incredible fuel capacity for hydrogen,” Nakrani says. “You have to get a lot of fuel in this truck. It has to prevent more than diesel because it can’t put as much power into its tanks. The inefficiencies mean they’re not even proving viable for trucks that require massive battery capacities. Fortescue had announced a 264-ton hydrogen-powered mining truck, but has now switched to batteries. “They have 1 MWh and 2 MW charging batteries. And they sell them. When they weren’t promoting hydrogen. There are also 50,000 40-ton electric trucks in use in China now.
“We have to be motivated through the requirements of the visitor at the end,” says Nakrani. “We have to look at the things that simplify companies. And it is being started to produce it in trucks in China. going to work, they will be niche cases, which in fact constitute less than 10% of the market. If you start with what the visitor wants and perceive actually well, the instances of use become clear. in a small niche segment compared to BEVS use cases. »
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