Daimler can Hydrogen cars, but team with Volvo for trucks
Discussion
"Daimler ends hydrogen car development because it's too costly. The company has been working on fuel-cell vehicles for more than 30 years. In the end, the company conceded that building hydrogen cars was too costly, about double the expense of an equivalent battery-electric vehicle."
https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/daimler-ends-hydrog...
Makes more sense at least for more industrial uses
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/04/22/volvo-buys-in...
https://electrek.co/2020/04/22/daimler-ends-hydrog...
Makes more sense at least for more industrial uses
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/04/22/volvo-buys-in...
They have been moving in this direction for quite a while.
Even for trucks etc, a large proportion of them do local/regional routes only which will likely still be battery based. The bigger ones that do logistics between countries etc batteries still look a long way off due to distance and energy required and hydrogen potentially makes more sense. For Daimler and Volvo this makes up about 60% of their products. The vehicle cost is high enough that the reduction in battery mass and cost will more than pay for the hydrogen. Most of these trucks are running up against weight limits, especially in Europe, so they cannot afford to lose cargo capacity and work profitably.
I still think this is Tesla's biggest miss-step, the Semi is very California focuses as they have a lot of ports needing drayage and pressure from CARB to find a solution but the reality is that the up to 15 ton trucks are the biggest market that can be electrified now.
Even for trucks etc, a large proportion of them do local/regional routes only which will likely still be battery based. The bigger ones that do logistics between countries etc batteries still look a long way off due to distance and energy required and hydrogen potentially makes more sense. For Daimler and Volvo this makes up about 60% of their products. The vehicle cost is high enough that the reduction in battery mass and cost will more than pay for the hydrogen. Most of these trucks are running up against weight limits, especially in Europe, so they cannot afford to lose cargo capacity and work profitably.
I still think this is Tesla's biggest miss-step, the Semi is very California focuses as they have a lot of ports needing drayage and pressure from CARB to find a solution but the reality is that the up to 15 ton trucks are the biggest market that can be electrified now.
GT119 said:
Wait, what?
I have it on good authority from several armchair experts on here that Hydrogen is the future.
Daimler have so dropped the ball on this one!
It will never go away now, it will become the new 'they had a car that could run on water' bI have it on good authority from several armchair experts on here that Hydrogen is the future.
Daimler have so dropped the ball on this one!
ks you hear from the old idiot in the pub.On here rather than admitting they were wrong about hydrogen they will try to paint it as some conspiracy.
cossey said:
The bigger ones that do logistics between countries etc batteries still look a long way off due to distance and energy required and hydrogen potentially makes more sense.
Not forgetting that they already have a good solution. If they can keep emissions down it's a far cheaper way to go to just keep diesel.
https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2019/...
This is an interesting paper from VW, but they’ve also reached the same conclusion and have ditched hydrogen drive for passenger cars as it’s not viable. However the tech could be more promising for long distance haulage use.
RobDickinson said:
Theres already several full BEV large trucks/sem's coming though, with increased energy density, lighter weight batteries and faster charging I'm not sure hydrogen has the time it needs to get a foot hold into trucking.
I can see it in use in shipping though
I think it depends on the application. Most haulage routes are quite short but some are very much longer. BEVs might be able to handle the 500-1000 mile routes which are about as long as it gets in the UK, but in some other places trucks get driven very much further than that with minimal breaks. I think we'll probalby see an 90:10 split in heavy haulage between BEVs and something capable of faster recharging. Of course that 10% might simply remain diesel. I can see it in use in shipping though
I suppose it's possible we'll seee BEV HGV charge rates up in the MWs range to make them viable for longer trips, but I'm not convinced the market for long range trucks is big enough for it to be worthwhile, especially since many of the really long range routes are in poor countries which probably wont have the infrastructure to cope with that sort of demand in rural locations for some time.
ETA: I suppose it's also possible trucks will go down the battery-swapping route. Given the size of the packs, the hardware required to swap batteries might become commercially viable in a way it just isn't with cars.
Edited by kambites on Monday 11th May 07:02
RobDickinson said:
Truck drivers have to take breaks, so long as you can recharge within those kinds of times your good.
In the UK (and most of the rest of the devleoped world) yes, not so sure that sort of rule exists in places where people actually want to drive trucks long distances like China and Africa. Even if it does, there's nothing to stop companies running two drivers who swap. Of course the rate of charge required will depend on how far you're driving and, more crucially, the value of getting the goods to where they're going quickly. As I understand it 2-3000 mile routes aren't unheard of in some places but whether adding 5 hours to them would matter, I don't know.
Even here in Bulgaria you get (in more normal times) hundreds of Turkish trucks coming up across the border with two drivers on board which I suspect wont stop until their get to their destination which will often be in Western Europe. Judging by the speed they drive at they're obviously in a hurry to get somewhere.
Edited by kambites on Monday 11th May 08:15
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