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Volvo and Daimler bet on hydrogen truck boom this decade

136 points by samizdis 6y ago

shafyy 6y ago
I thought by now it's clear to everyone that electric motors are the way to go? Is this some kind of lobby / legacy crap?
- amalcon 6y ago
  The charging time issue is basically solved for cars, but not nearly solved for long haul trucks (which both require more energy and expect a lower idle:active time ratio). It seems worth exploring alternate fuel sources for that case.
  - danielscrubs 6y ago
    How so? My friend told me just last week that all the charging stations where full because even if 20-30 min might not seem like a long time, on a busy station the queues becomes intense. Meetings are missed if you don’t plan ahead.
    - vlovich123 6y ago
      The needs of trucks are very different than the needs of commercial vehicles, so that 20-30 min charging time becomes several hours if not more. They might just do battery swapping at that point.
      - gambiting 6y ago
        The bigger the battery the faster you can charge it. And commercial drivers have to stop for an 8 hour rest every 8 hours of work by law anyway(at least here in UK/EU). Even using the already existing infrastructure and charging at the relatively common 150kW, you're regaining 1.2MWh(!!!!!!) capacity in those 8 hours. That's a lot of energy, about 12 Tesla Model X batteries worth.
        bluGill 6y ago
        In the US team drivers are common: two drivers in one truck, one drives while the other sleeps, they take turns who is driving. They still need to stop for fuel/supplies and exercise, but they can cover a lot of ground in a day because they never stop for very long (they are very careful to track all restroom breaks so that they can prove they never exceed the legal limits of how long they can drive before a rest)
        darksaints 6y ago
        A large percentage of long haul trucks have team drivers, which legally can and do run 24/7. Even for those that don't, you're talking about building charging infrastructure for a huge quantity of trucks most of which will be wanting to charge at the same time. It's hard enough to get commercial 240v connections in the US, how hard do you think it would be for truck stops to get 10MW connections?
        gambiting 6y ago
        I really don't know. Don't have the answer for US. All I can say is that we ship goods cross Europe all the time(UK-Poland, trip that takes 3-4 days one way) and it's always done by a single driver, we've used many different shipping companies and we've never had a driver team - I guess that the economics of transport don't work for dual drivers in EU for whatever reason, but again, I really don't have the answer as to why. "It's hard enough to get commercial 240v connections in the US" Again, not an expert on US infrastructure, but any charging site will be getting a 10kV connection which will be then stepped down to whatever you need - it has to be converted to DC anyway so you need those transformers anyway. As to the feasibility of providing 10MW to a charging stop - really don't know, someone else has to answer this.
        darksaints 6y ago
        Yeah, the complexity and cost is pretty high at that sort of of localized power density. Most truck stops max out on nighttime parking (about 100 spaces), and assuming all of them charging at the time, a moderately sized truck stop would require about 20MW peak power...even more if they plan on having megachargers. The biggest problem is line capacity...you won't be able to piggyback on local infrastructure. You'll have to run dedicated lines from tens, if not hundreds of miles away from the nearest distribution station. Remember, most truck stops are far away from population centers, and thus electrical infrastructure, as a matter of practicality. They need too much land. I'm not betting on hydrogen specifically because 1) it's too complex, and 2) while the volumetric density is within the realm of feasibility, it's still not great. But I am betting on fuel cells. Solid Oxide Fuel Cells in particular. They're already extremely efficient, and also produce high grade (i.e. easily recapturable and convertible) heat. And they can use hydrogen, but they can also use methane, ammonia, butane, propane, diesel, gasoline, or any other form of fuel (I've run one off of wood chips!). And that flexibility has a lot of power, especially with the future of abundant and cheap non-peak power costs and rapidly developing synthetic fuel technologies.
    - kackerd 6y ago
      That sounds like a good news story for EVs. So many people bought them that the installation of charging stations is lagging behind. There is no strong constraint on building new charging stations though. Soon they will catch up, and no one will have to wait more than 20-30 minutes.
  - whalesalad 6y ago
    It’s definitely not solved. There are a half dozen different plug formats, voltage levels, etc… If you want fast charging for instance you need a special vehicle with a high voltage system. Those are not super common right now, although it’s getting better. Really this is the biggest unsolved part of EV’s.
    - IgorPartola 6y ago
      The biggest unsolved part of EV IMO is the fact that mining lithium destroys the environment, and IIRC uses a fair bit of child labor. Looking at it from that perspective it’s not yet a green technology.
      - maxerickson 6y ago
        Lithium mining is pretty well industrialized I think. Cobalt mining has problems with child labor.
    - gambiting 6y ago
      There are? Here in UK you have Type 2(can be safely ignored for this, pretty much only used for at-home charging up to 7kW single phase or 21kW triple phase), Chademo(only used by the leafs and other Nissan cars) and CCS. CCS being the most common, there are motorway charging stations with super modern 250kW chargers and they only have CCS, so no issue with compatibility at all. Basically all new cars have CCS connectors, it's the standard. And yes, CCS supports either 400 or 800V charging, but that's seamlessly negotiated by the car once connected, I don't see that as a problem here.
      - SigmundA 6y ago
        A large truck will not be able to use a CCS charger even at 800v for under an hour. The Tesla semi look to be using a special connector with 4 parallel DC connections while a CCS2 is only a single pair. Your going to need a Megawatt for reasonable charge times, CCS tops out a 400kw at 1000v and 400amps with liquid cooled cables and connectors. BTW a diesel truck pump puts out about the equivalent of 6 megawatts after efficiencies are normalized.
- ultrastable 6y ago
  I think the perceived advantage is range? I don't really know anything about fuel cells but I'd be interested to know how they compare to battery power in terms of the environmental consequences of material extraction/manufacturing, eg lithium
- jacquesm 6y ago
  Hydrogen powered vehicles can use electric motors. See: https://www.daf.com/en/about-daf/sustainability/alternative-fuels-and-drivelines/hydrogen https://www.daf.com/en/about-daf/sustainability/alternative-...
  - shafyy 6y ago
    True. I need to be more specific: Electric motors powered by chemical batteries.
    - zibzab 6y ago
      Hydrogen power cells have a number of advantages. For one they are more efficient while being much more environmental friendly than batteries (which to be perfectly honest is basically an environmental disaster on wheels). Also, much faster to charge which is important in commercial traffic.
- lstodd 6y ago
  That's part hype, part subsidy-hunting. The whole piece can be condensed to that single sentence: > Both men urged governments not just to ensure that the necessary fuel infrastructure would be in place for hydrogen but also to provide sufficient incentives for transport companies to shift to greener trucks. That is all there is.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jhoechtl 6y ago
  It's by no means clear, that's the point. From battery to motor is fine for your ride within city limits but by no way a solved problem for long hauls. Energy density, charging time and the problem, that even an exhausted battery has the same weight as a fresh one, are the issues yet to be solved.
- danuker 6y ago
  Electric battery storage density is nowhere near diesel or petrol. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Energy-densities-of-various-energy-storage-materials-and-technologies-illustrating-the_fig3_238394762 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Energy-densities-of-vari...
- SigmundA 6y ago
  They seemed to be referencing fuel cells not combustion engines.
- whalesalad 6y ago
  Diesel locomotives are still powered by electricity. The Diesel engine runs a generator which provides power to the traction motors on the rail. The same concept can be applied here to Hydrogen.
  - intrasight 6y ago
    I'd say "powered by diesel but moved by electric motors" Trains have different requirements in terms of how power is applied to the wheels, and the loss of efficiency is acceptable in this context.
- pWFk41mFfie1NOd 6y ago
  Hydrogen fuel cells don't make sense for consumer cars but there are still areas where the higher energy density and quicker refueling times make hydrogen a viable option. Check out this video which does talk about the issues with hydrogen but shows the areas such as heavy duty trucking, ships, etc. where hydrogen can work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoXJYPfag1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoXJYPfag1I
JohnJamesRambo 6y ago
This headline just made me think of how hydrogen likes to go boom.
- OscarTheGrinch 6y ago
  Yeah, the big hydrogen guys should really not let hydrogen and boom appear in the same headline.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
I'd like to remind people that heavy trucks that make fairly regular and predictable journeys between fixed points with fairly rigid timing constraints lend themselves very well to all sorts of solutions that wouldn't work for your work/soccer/whole foods type trips. I wouldn't bet my money on hydrogen being the way of the future but I would bet my money on internet comments being wrong when it comes to predicting the future of heavy industry on a timeline longer than a couple quarters. Batteries are getting better and look promising but all new tech does that until it hits a wall (then it generally progresses slowly until some development in a different field enables further development in the stalled field). What are the odds batteries hit a wall before they're viable in heavy trucks? I dunno but certainly not zero.
- darksaints 6y ago
  The theoretical limit of energy density for lithium batteries is already too low to be economically viable for most trucking applications. I also don't know that hydrogen is the answer, but it almost assuredly is not going to be batteries for anything that isn't for local deliveries only.
  - shafyy 6y ago
    Elon: Hold my beer!
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > theoretical limit of energy density for lithium batteries is already too low to be economically viable for most trucking applications Curious to see a source for this.
  - xxpor 6y ago
    Economic viability can be massaged through subsidies or taxes, if the break even point isn't too far away from the current point.
    - EricE 6y ago
      >Economic viability can be massaged through subsidies or taxes Wow - we have subsidies than can alter the laws of physics? Neat! Why didn't we deploy that before now!
sam_goody 6y ago
I bet a lot of people read this and think "Well, looks like a good time to buy Tesla." Perceptually, this means the "Europeans" are not competing in the electric truck market; the market which is believed by most to be the future. [IMO, electric trucks _are_ the future. However, that is incidental, as stocks rise on perception, not fact]
- speedgoose 6y ago
  Volvo already sells battery powered electric trucks. I have seen a few of them used in Oslo.
jhoechtl 6y ago
> “Fuel cells and hydrogen will play a super-important role,” That's the point. It's not hydrogen as the fuel to drive the power train but as the storage medium to generate electricity which drives the power train. This article is not a lobbyists knee-jerk reaction but a topic deserving much more attention than being buried in Tesla stock market tickers.
kasperni 6y ago
The main thing hydrogen has going for it is the stored energy by weight which is around 142 MJ/kg. Lithium batteries are less than 1 MJ/kg. So around a factory 200x difference. Ir you want to find something better than hydrogen energy/kg wise you have to go nuclear.
- whalesalad 6y ago
  Yes! Electric energy transmission and storage is a really hard problem when you look at it compared to liquid fuels. This is the nut to crack.
  - cellularmitosis 6y ago
    Should we instead focus on sustainable liquid fuels? Diesel from algae for example?
- ragebol 6y ago
  But what is the volume of a kilo of hydrogen at practical pressures?
  - bildung 6y ago
    42 kg/m³ or 0.024 m³ per kg at the usual 700 bar.
  - gilbetron 6y ago
    Looks like a ballpark, current practical volume is around 25 liters per kg: https://energies.airliquide.com/resources-planet-hydrogen/how-hydrogen-stored https://energies.airliquide.com/resources-planet-hydrogen/ho... I think the greater issue with Hydrogen is how it likes to go boom, and the greater the energy density you store it at, the bigger the boom!
    - toxik 6y ago
      This is also one of the benefits of diesel, it doesn't ignite so easily.
OscarTheGrinch 6y ago
These trucks will be super useful in transporting all the necessary hydrogen around!
- Theodores 6y ago
  In the UK we used to have coal powered trains that were useful for moving coal around. Lots was needed.
SigmundA 6y ago
Not the biggest Elon fan but I do believe he is right about Hydrogen [1]. Hydrogen is not sitting around somewhere to be pumped out of the ground it must be split from something else like water which is very energy intensive. It is very low density and must be highly compressed / liquefied, much more energy. Even liquefied has very low energy density per volume. It is very difficult to store and transport safely in the highly compressed or liquified form. Might as well just charge a battery with the energy rather than creating hydrogen. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFPnT-DCBVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFPnT-DCBVs
- shafyy 6y ago
  I don't know why you're getting downvoted, your points are surely valid.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  If I need to side with someone here, I'm more inclined to side with the two companies that have a long history in making trucks vs. the person whose company has yet to made the truck they debuted in 2017.
  - SigmundA 6y ago
    There are no hydrogen trucks on the road either, time will tell which one is viable. Physics tells me which one will be more likely no need for a argumentum ab auctoritate.
    - Hamuko 6y ago
      Since when has listening to an authority on a topic been a bad thing? Daimler and Volvo are the two biggest truck companies in the world. I imagine they have a pretty good grasp on the market and on the engineering.
      - dagw 6y ago
        Volvo also has real electric trucks on the road and working today. So if anybody knows the pros and cons of electric trucks, its probably Volvo.
unchocked 6y ago
I'm excited about this - we need to invest in different energy storage solutions; as promising as batteries are they may not be the global optimum for all things as the common woo tells us. For long haul trucking, battery mass eats substantially into payload. And while batteries are getting much cheaper, they aren't getting much lighter (cue the "but structural batteries" woo here). Hydrogen is an incredibly energy dense fuel and can be used in a wide variety of applications, but trucking may be the driver that pushes hydrogen economics and infrastructure towards being a viable part of our power storage and distribution system. Once something drives hydrogen at scale, it becomes possible to think about long term (seasonal) energy storage, electrification of long-haul flight, and replacement of fossil fuel for industrial process heat - all vital for driving emissions to zero.
scythe 6y ago
I keep hearing about hydrogen and batteries being an either/or problem, but it doesn't make sense. For one thing, gas/electric hybrids exist and have been successful despite requiring two engines. But with hydrogen it's even simpler because a fuel cell already feeds an electric motor. You only need one engine to use both forms of storage. And the advantage of putting a battery in your hydrogen vehicle is immense: you get cycle optimization, regenerative braking, improved peak acceleration and cheaper short trips (w/ plug-in hybrid) because while hydrogen can compete with electricity on convenience, it will never compete on price. Granted, the battery brings a weight penalty, but potentially much less than if you tried to deliver 600 miles of range with 18 wheels and 60 tons gvw. Is this a problem for Tesla? Not if they just acquire a hydrogen startup if/when the time comes. The market for pure electric vehicles will not go anywhere. The question is whether the administration has the necessary competence.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  > For one thing, gas/electric hybrids exist and have been successful despite requiring two engines. Hybrids are pretty simple. Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive is basically a replacement transmission and is much more basic in design than a conventional automatic. HSD reduces the number of planetary gear trains to just one, replaces the large number of clutch packs with two electric motors, and eliminates the torque converter all together. One could build a working HSD unit using 1920s technology. It just would need to be manually operated (probably using a lever similar to an aircraft throttle).
  - fomine3 6y ago
    Mechanically simple, but it was nightmare to develop the ECU at 1990s.
mistrial9 6y ago
like this? "Time is right for hydrogen fuel in California, concludes new policy report " July 2004 https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/07/26_rael.shtml https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/07/26_rael...
edhelas 6y ago
90% of hydrogen worldwide is made using carbon sources. First de-carbonate that before talking about "clean energy". Most of the trucks nowadays can be replaced with trains. Let's focus on that first. This it not an engineering issue, it's a political and organizational issue.
- ultrastable 6y ago
  thank you. it would be nice if there was more recognition of the whole energy chain rather than the pretense that lithium, electricity etc just spring fully-formed from the ether
- bildung 6y ago
  > 90% of hydrogen worldwide is made using carbon sources. Because 90% of worldwide energy anything is currently non-renewable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption Power to gas is actually a technology employed productively to convert excess renewable energy into hydrogen etc.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas I fully agree with your goal, though I do think this isn't a first this than that situation.
- warmwaffles 6y ago
  > Most of the trucks nowadays can be replaced with trains. Let's focus on that first. Yes and no. Trains do not work well for distribution centers like walmart, krogers, target, etc... The last 1-100 miles will need trucks. Long haul, yes, trains _can_ be used. But there are situations where that is not a feasible solution.
  - Pxtl 6y ago
    Right, but long-haul is where batteries don't work. If we can get rail to every regional distribution centre (or rather, build regional distribution centres at rail yards) and then use batteries for the last hundred km, that's a win.
- thrwyoilarticle 6y ago
birktj 6y ago
Is syngas/synfuel [1] a viable route? Obviously it would be less efficient to produce than pure hydrogen (anyone know how much energy would be lost in the hydrogen conversion step?) and probably cannot compete with natural hydrocarbons with current tech, electricity prices and carbon taxes. However compared to pure hydrogen it should have a couple of advantages: compact (same energy by volume as current fuels) and can take advantage of current infrastructure. If done right it could probably power both current ICE vehicles as well as future fuel-cell vehicles. Can anyone comment on any major downsides except it not really being economically viable with current tech. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel
- darksaints 6y ago
  Yes it is certainly viable. Far too many people think efficiency is going to be the deciding factor, but in reality we already have tons of energy that goes to waste, and it is only going to get larger with intermittent renewables. Over provisioning of renewables seems to be the current best option to deal with baseload demands from intermittent renewables, which will mean that the cost of surplus non-peak energy is going to trend toward $0/kWh. In the end, who cares if it takes 150kWh to make 50kWh of fuel if that 50kWh of fuel only costs $1? I'm 100% sure most trucking companies won't give a shit. This all would mean that efficiency doesn't really matter anymore, but rather the practical characteristics of the fuel. Liquid fuels, and many easily compressed fuels, are amazingly practical. Natural gas is already a viable fuel for many trucking applications, and synthesized methane is incredibly easy. But synthetic diesel and butane are also within the realm of possibilities.
- xputer 6y ago
  Yes tbh I don't understand why there isn't more attention devoted to making renewable fuels that are more practical than hydrogen. Until we find a better way to store hydrogen I don't think it'll ever take off.
kstenerud 6y ago
> Of the need to build the infrastructure at the same time as the trucks, Lundstedt said: “It can be seen as a chicken and egg. But we have said we will go for it. We will deliver the chicken. Someone else can deliver the egg.” Is it just me or does this sound incredibly naive?
athenot 6y ago
"hydrogen truck boom" I'm all for puns, but at some point we need to stop the association between hydrogen and explosiveness. Absent the perfect mix of H₂ and O₂, Hydrogen burns like most other fuels.
- mywittyname 6y ago
  Hydrogen burns until the point of stoichiometry, then, boom.
- dokem 6y ago
  My understanding is that Hydrogen is not like most other fuels and very much does like to go boom under a much wider range of oxygen concentrations, rather than burn. I think it may have to do with how little mass the hydrogen atom has. For instance, gasoline volatility over diesel is because it is refined for shorter hydrocarbon polymers, which have less mass. Hopefully someone can clarify this?
- Pxtl 6y ago
  Well, at the pressures you'd have to store it at I start worrying about a much more conventional type of boom than the flame-based kind.
  - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
    I like that a pressure boom is neither deflagration nor detonation, it’s just “escape”but it’s the same sound and effect so we use the same word.
rich_sasha 6y ago
Is there anyone in the know on this thread as to how hydrogen compares to the other 'greenish' fuels? Ammonia, methane, methanol/ethanol etc. It always seems to me that hydrogen is just so, so hard to store, that just about any other fuel ought to be more practical. Cars running on natural gas already do exist, as does some infra - so maybe it's not such a far cry?
dukeofdoom 6y ago
Seems like Trucks would be ideal for swapping out batteries at refuelling stops. Since they more or less travel at the top speed limit.
Ericson2314 6y ago
Just do more freight trains already...
Mvandenbergh 6y ago
There's obviously a lot of complexities here and clear reasons why many in the transport industry think this is the solution. If they didn't Volvo and Daimler would be announcing their bet on BEV, right? Unlike oil majors, they have no sunk-cost reason to prefer one over the other and a lot of the technical change is shared between the platforms. A FCEV is just a BEV with a small battery, a small fuel cell, and a big hydrogen tank. That being the case, it feels a bit easy to just say, "obviously this doesn't make sense". However there are a few important differences between trucks and passenger cars that actually reduce some of the issues with EV trucking. A long-haul truck probably needs about 700kWh to 1MWh of battery storage. How long does that take to charge? Some constraints on passenger car charging become less relevant when you're serving a professional audience and can have staff on-site to help. Cable thickness / weight is an ergonomic constraint that can be relaxed if you are serving truckers and not the 99th percentile of the public. You can even mount them on articulated arms on a gantry so that you're not dragging them around. Multiple cables charging in parallel? Inconvenient on a passenger car, perfectly sensible on a truck. Liquid cooling loop to external chiller? Again, that just doesn't work if you're building tens of thousands of chargers for the public, may well be worthwhile on network of truck refilling stations. In the EU, there is already a mandatory 45 minute break every 4 hrs 30 mins. So there is no need for trucks that can drive for 12 hours on a tank. (US rules are in theory laxer but in practice insurance companies also insist on break rules). So the real question is whether you can make the charging process fast enough to get approx. 4:30 extra capacity in 45 minutes. That's probably about 800kWh in 40 minutes of actual charging (assume time to connect and disconnect) or 1.2MW. 350kW chargers are installed and operating now (though I'm not sure how many cars can actually use them at that power) so naively you would think that running 4 of those in parallel would give you the charging tech required to run trucks today. Hydrogen may still be cheaper for truck transport once you work out all the costs and logistics but I don't think it's wildly impossible either. The big advantage that hydrogen has is that the cost of hydrogen tanks scales much more slowly than batteries. If pack price is $100/kWh then you need $70k-$100k worth of batteries. Doesn't seem crazy for a truck but a tank that can hold equivalent H2 at pressure is much cheaper. Takes up a lot of space but trucking is mass limited rather than volume limited.
- darksaints 6y ago
hollerith 6y ago
Hydrogen molecules are so inconvenient to store. It would be great if the hydrogen atoms were stored in the form of, e.g., octane, then the carbon atoms (from the octane) were recovered somehow so they don't accumulate in the atmosphere.
iamgopal 6y ago
What they know that I’m missing, for me, hydrogen is a dead horse.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Bapuff 6y ago
This truck will be mass produced by 2026 but there are some difficulties ahead First it is a liquid hydrogen one, second they are calling for massive investments from government Volvo is selling very well a lng truck, and the biolng theme makes it quite compelling.
jppope 6y ago
I still haven't figured out why solutions like MagLev trains aren't used for this problem...
throwawaysea 6y ago
How does hydrogen store over time? For example regular gasoline can be stored only for about six months.
auiya 6y ago
Every automaker is investing in many many different alternative drive train types. Volvo and Daimler are not putting all their money on black per se, just diversifying their R&D like everyone. Porsche and Toyota for instance are dumping money into synthetic fuel, but it doesn't mean they're anticipating any sort of synthetic fuel boom, they're just trying to be ready if it happens. This isn't news.

136 points by samizdis 6y ago

I thought by now it's clear to everyone that electric motors are the way to go? Is this some kind of lobby / legacy crap?

amalcon 6y ago
The charging time issue is basically solved for cars, but not nearly solved for long haul trucks (which both require more energy and expect a lower idle:active time ratio). It seems worth exploring alternate fuel sources for that case.
- danielscrubs 6y ago
  How so? My friend told me just last week that all the charging stations where full because even if 20-30 min might not seem like a long time, on a busy station the queues becomes intense. Meetings are missed if you don’t plan ahead.
  - vlovich123 6y ago
    The needs of trucks are very different than the needs of commercial vehicles, so that 20-30 min charging time becomes several hours if not more. They might just do battery swapping at that point.
    - gambiting 6y ago
      The bigger the battery the faster you can charge it. And commercial drivers have to stop for an 8 hour rest every 8 hours of work by law anyway(at least here in UK/EU). Even using the already existing infrastructure and charging at the relatively common 150kW, you're regaining 1.2MWh(!!!!!!) capacity in those 8 hours. That's a lot of energy, about 12 Tesla Model X batteries worth.
      - bluGill 6y ago
        In the US team drivers are common: two drivers in one truck, one drives while the other sleeps, they take turns who is driving. They still need to stop for fuel/supplies and exercise, but they can cover a lot of ground in a day because they never stop for very long (they are very careful to track all restroom breaks so that they can prove they never exceed the legal limits of how long they can drive before a rest)
      - darksaints 6y ago
        A large percentage of long haul trucks have team drivers, which legally can and do run 24/7. Even for those that don't, you're talking about building charging infrastructure for a huge quantity of trucks most of which will be wanting to charge at the same time. It's hard enough to get commercial 240v connections in the US, how hard do you think it would be for truck stops to get 10MW connections?
        gambiting 6y ago
        I really don't know. Don't have the answer for US. All I can say is that we ship goods cross Europe all the time(UK-Poland, trip that takes 3-4 days one way) and it's always done by a single driver, we've used many different shipping companies and we've never had a driver team - I guess that the economics of transport don't work for dual drivers in EU for whatever reason, but again, I really don't have the answer as to why. "It's hard enough to get commercial 240v connections in the US" Again, not an expert on US infrastructure, but any charging site will be getting a 10kV connection which will be then stepped down to whatever you need - it has to be converted to DC anyway so you need those transformers anyway. As to the feasibility of providing 10MW to a charging stop - really don't know, someone else has to answer this.
        darksaints 6y ago
        Yeah, the complexity and cost is pretty high at that sort of of localized power density. Most truck stops max out on nighttime parking (about 100 spaces), and assuming all of them charging at the time, a moderately sized truck stop would require about 20MW peak power...even more if they plan on having megachargers. The biggest problem is line capacity...you won't be able to piggyback on local infrastructure. You'll have to run dedicated lines from tens, if not hundreds of miles away from the nearest distribution station. Remember, most truck stops are far away from population centers, and thus electrical infrastructure, as a matter of practicality. They need too much land. I'm not betting on hydrogen specifically because 1) it's too complex, and 2) while the volumetric density is within the realm of feasibility, it's still not great. But I am betting on fuel cells. Solid Oxide Fuel Cells in particular. They're already extremely efficient, and also produce high grade (i.e. easily recapturable and convertible) heat. And they can use hydrogen, but they can also use methane, ammonia, butane, propane, diesel, gasoline, or any other form of fuel (I've run one off of wood chips!). And that flexibility has a lot of power, especially with the future of abundant and cheap non-peak power costs and rapidly developing synthetic fuel technologies.
  - kackerd 6y ago
    That sounds like a good news story for EVs. So many people bought them that the installation of charging stations is lagging behind. There is no strong constraint on building new charging stations though. Soon they will catch up, and no one will have to wait more than 20-30 minutes.
- whalesalad 6y ago
  It’s definitely not solved. There are a half dozen different plug formats, voltage levels, etc… If you want fast charging for instance you need a special vehicle with a high voltage system. Those are not super common right now, although it’s getting better. Really this is the biggest unsolved part of EV’s.
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    The biggest unsolved part of EV IMO is the fact that mining lithium destroys the environment, and IIRC uses a fair bit of child labor. Looking at it from that perspective it’s not yet a green technology.
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      Lithium mining is pretty well industrialized I think. Cobalt mining has problems with child labor.
  - gambiting 6y ago
    There are? Here in UK you have Type 2(can be safely ignored for this, pretty much only used for at-home charging up to 7kW single phase or 21kW triple phase), Chademo(only used by the leafs and other Nissan cars) and CCS. CCS being the most common, there are motorway charging stations with super modern 250kW chargers and they only have CCS, so no issue with compatibility at all. Basically all new cars have CCS connectors, it's the standard. And yes, CCS supports either 400 or 800V charging, but that's seamlessly negotiated by the car once connected, I don't see that as a problem here.
    - SigmundA 6y ago
      A large truck will not be able to use a CCS charger even at 800v for under an hour. The Tesla semi look to be using a special connector with 4 parallel DC connections while a CCS2 is only a single pair. Your going to need a Megawatt for reasonable charge times, CCS tops out a 400kw at 1000v and 400amps with liquid cooled cables and connectors. BTW a diesel truck pump puts out about the equivalent of 6 megawatts after efficiencies are normalized.
ultrastable 6y ago
I think the perceived advantage is range? I don't really know anything about fuel cells but I'd be interested to know how they compare to battery power in terms of the environmental consequences of material extraction/manufacturing, eg lithium
jacquesm 6y ago
Hydrogen powered vehicles can use electric motors. See: https://www.daf.com/en/about-daf/sustainability/alternative-fuels-and-drivelines/hydrogen https://www.daf.com/en/about-daf/sustainability/alternative-...
- shafyy 6y ago
  True. I need to be more specific: Electric motors powered by chemical batteries.
  - zibzab 6y ago
    Hydrogen power cells have a number of advantages. For one they are more efficient while being much more environmental friendly than batteries (which to be perfectly honest is basically an environmental disaster on wheels). Also, much faster to charge which is important in commercial traffic.
lstodd 6y ago
That's part hype, part subsidy-hunting. The whole piece can be condensed to that single sentence: > Both men urged governments not just to ensure that the necessary fuel infrastructure would be in place for hydrogen but also to provide sufficient incentives for transport companies to shift to greener trucks. That is all there is.
deleted 6y ago
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jhoechtl 6y ago
It's by no means clear, that's the point. From battery to motor is fine for your ride within city limits but by no way a solved problem for long hauls. Energy density, charging time and the problem, that even an exhausted battery has the same weight as a fresh one, are the issues yet to be solved.
danuker 6y ago
Electric battery storage density is nowhere near diesel or petrol. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Energy-densities-of-various-energy-storage-materials-and-technologies-illustrating-the_fig3_238394762 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Energy-densities-of-vari...
SigmundA 6y ago
They seemed to be referencing fuel cells not combustion engines.
whalesalad 6y ago
Diesel locomotives are still powered by electricity. The Diesel engine runs a generator which provides power to the traction motors on the rail. The same concept can be applied here to Hydrogen.
- intrasight 6y ago
  I'd say "powered by diesel but moved by electric motors" Trains have different requirements in terms of how power is applied to the wheels, and the loss of efficiency is acceptable in this context.
pWFk41mFfie1NOd 6y ago
Hydrogen fuel cells don't make sense for consumer cars but there are still areas where the higher energy density and quicker refueling times make hydrogen a viable option. Check out this video which does talk about the issues with hydrogen but shows the areas such as heavy duty trucking, ships, etc. where hydrogen can work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoXJYPfag1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoXJYPfag1I

JohnJamesRambo 6y ago

This headline just made me think of how hydrogen likes to go boom.

OscarTheGrinch 6y ago
Yeah, the big hydrogen guys should really not let hydrogen and boom appear in the same headline.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

I'd like to remind people that heavy trucks that make fairly regular and predictable journeys between fixed points with fairly rigid timing constraints lend themselves very well to all sorts of solutions that wouldn't work for your work/soccer/whole foods type trips. I wouldn't bet my money on hydrogen being the way of the future but I would bet my money on internet comments being wrong when it comes to predicting the future of heavy industry on a timeline longer than a couple quarters. Batteries are getting better and look promising but all new tech does that until it hits a wall (then it generally progresses slowly until some development in a different field enables further development in the stalled field). What are the odds batteries hit a wall before they're viable in heavy trucks? I dunno but certainly not zero.

darksaints 6y ago
The theoretical limit of energy density for lithium batteries is already too low to be economically viable for most trucking applications. I also don't know that hydrogen is the answer, but it almost assuredly is not going to be batteries for anything that isn't for local deliveries only.
- shafyy 6y ago
  Elon: Hold my beer!
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > theoretical limit of energy density for lithium batteries is already too low to be economically viable for most trucking applications Curious to see a source for this.
- xxpor 6y ago
  Economic viability can be massaged through subsidies or taxes, if the break even point isn't too far away from the current point.
  - EricE 6y ago
    >Economic viability can be massaged through subsidies or taxes Wow - we have subsidies than can alter the laws of physics? Neat! Why didn't we deploy that before now!

sam_goody 6y ago

I bet a lot of people read this and think "Well, looks like a good time to buy Tesla." Perceptually, this means the "Europeans" are not competing in the electric truck market; the market which is believed by most to be the future. [IMO, electric trucks _are_ the future. However, that is incidental, as stocks rise on perception, not fact]

speedgoose 6y ago
Volvo already sells battery powered electric trucks. I have seen a few of them used in Oslo.

jhoechtl 6y ago

> “Fuel cells and hydrogen will play a super-important role,” That's the point. It's not hydrogen as the fuel to drive the power train but as the storage medium to generate electricity which drives the power train. This article is not a lobbyists knee-jerk reaction but a topic deserving much more attention than being buried in Tesla stock market tickers.

kasperni 6y ago

The main thing hydrogen has going for it is the stored energy by weight which is around 142 MJ/kg. Lithium batteries are less than 1 MJ/kg. So around a factory 200x difference. Ir you want to find something better than hydrogen energy/kg wise you have to go nuclear.

whalesalad 6y ago
Yes! Electric energy transmission and storage is a really hard problem when you look at it compared to liquid fuels. This is the nut to crack.
- cellularmitosis 6y ago
  Should we instead focus on sustainable liquid fuels? Diesel from algae for example?
ragebol 6y ago
But what is the volume of a kilo of hydrogen at practical pressures?
- bildung 6y ago
  42 kg/m³ or 0.024 m³ per kg at the usual 700 bar.
- gilbetron 6y ago
  Looks like a ballpark, current practical volume is around 25 liters per kg: https://energies.airliquide.com/resources-planet-hydrogen/how-hydrogen-stored https://energies.airliquide.com/resources-planet-hydrogen/ho... I think the greater issue with Hydrogen is how it likes to go boom, and the greater the energy density you store it at, the bigger the boom!
  - toxik 6y ago
    This is also one of the benefits of diesel, it doesn't ignite so easily.

OscarTheGrinch 6y ago

These trucks will be super useful in transporting all the necessary hydrogen around!

Theodores 6y ago
In the UK we used to have coal powered trains that were useful for moving coal around. Lots was needed.

SigmundA 6y ago

Not the biggest Elon fan but I do believe he is right about Hydrogen [1]. Hydrogen is not sitting around somewhere to be pumped out of the ground it must be split from something else like water which is very energy intensive. It is very low density and must be highly compressed / liquefied, much more energy. Even liquefied has very low energy density per volume. It is very difficult to store and transport safely in the highly compressed or liquified form. Might as well just charge a battery with the energy rather than creating hydrogen. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFPnT-DCBVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFPnT-DCBVs

shafyy 6y ago
I don't know why you're getting downvoted, your points are surely valid.
Hamuko 6y ago
If I need to side with someone here, I'm more inclined to side with the two companies that have a long history in making trucks vs. the person whose company has yet to made the truck they debuted in 2017.
- SigmundA 6y ago
  There are no hydrogen trucks on the road either, time will tell which one is viable. Physics tells me which one will be more likely no need for a argumentum ab auctoritate.
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    Since when has listening to an authority on a topic been a bad thing? Daimler and Volvo are the two biggest truck companies in the world. I imagine they have a pretty good grasp on the market and on the engineering.
    - dagw 6y ago
      Volvo also has real electric trucks on the road and working today. So if anybody knows the pros and cons of electric trucks, its probably Volvo.

unchocked 6y ago

I'm excited about this - we need to invest in different energy storage solutions; as promising as batteries are they may not be the global optimum for all things as the common woo tells us. For long haul trucking, battery mass eats substantially into payload. And while batteries are getting much cheaper, they aren't getting much lighter (cue the "but structural batteries" woo here). Hydrogen is an incredibly energy dense fuel and can be used in a wide variety of applications, but trucking may be the driver that pushes hydrogen economics and infrastructure towards being a viable part of our power storage and distribution system. Once something drives hydrogen at scale, it becomes possible to think about long term (seasonal) energy storage, electrification of long-haul flight, and replacement of fossil fuel for industrial process heat - all vital for driving emissions to zero.

scythe 6y ago

I keep hearing about hydrogen and batteries being an either/or problem, but it doesn't make sense. For one thing, gas/electric hybrids exist and have been successful despite requiring two engines. But with hydrogen it's even simpler because a fuel cell already feeds an electric motor. You only need one engine to use both forms of storage. And the advantage of putting a battery in your hydrogen vehicle is immense: you get cycle optimization, regenerative braking, improved peak acceleration and cheaper short trips (w/ plug-in hybrid) because while hydrogen can compete with electricity on convenience, it will never compete on price. Granted, the battery brings a weight penalty, but potentially much less than if you tried to deliver 600 miles of range with 18 wheels and 60 tons gvw. Is this a problem for Tesla? Not if they just acquire a hydrogen startup if/when the time comes. The market for pure electric vehicles will not go anywhere. The question is whether the administration has the necessary competence.

mywittyname 6y ago
> For one thing, gas/electric hybrids exist and have been successful despite requiring two engines. Hybrids are pretty simple. Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive is basically a replacement transmission and is much more basic in design than a conventional automatic. HSD reduces the number of planetary gear trains to just one, replaces the large number of clutch packs with two electric motors, and eliminates the torque converter all together. One could build a working HSD unit using 1920s technology. It just would need to be manually operated (probably using a lever similar to an aircraft throttle).
- fomine3 6y ago
  Mechanically simple, but it was nightmare to develop the ECU at 1990s.

mistrial9 6y ago

like this? "Time is right for hydrogen fuel in California, concludes new policy report " July 2004 https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/07/26_rael.shtml https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/07/26_rael...

edhelas 6y ago

90% of hydrogen worldwide is made using carbon sources. First de-carbonate that before talking about "clean energy". Most of the trucks nowadays can be replaced with trains. Let's focus on that first. This it not an engineering issue, it's a political and organizational issue.

ultrastable 6y ago
thank you. it would be nice if there was more recognition of the whole energy chain rather than the pretense that lithium, electricity etc just spring fully-formed from the ether
bildung 6y ago
> 90% of hydrogen worldwide is made using carbon sources. Because 90% of worldwide energy anything is currently non-renewable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption Power to gas is actually a technology employed productively to convert excess renewable energy into hydrogen etc.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas I fully agree with your goal, though I do think this isn't a first this than that situation.
warmwaffles 6y ago
> Most of the trucks nowadays can be replaced with trains. Let's focus on that first. Yes and no. Trains do not work well for distribution centers like walmart, krogers, target, etc... The last 1-100 miles will need trucks. Long haul, yes, trains _can_ be used. But there are situations where that is not a feasible solution.
- Pxtl 6y ago
  Right, but long-haul is where batteries don't work. If we can get rail to every regional distribution centre (or rather, build regional distribution centres at rail yards) and then use batteries for the last hundred km, that's a win.
thrwyoilarticle 6y ago

birktj 6y ago

Is syngas/synfuel [1] a viable route? Obviously it would be less efficient to produce than pure hydrogen (anyone know how much energy would be lost in the hydrogen conversion step?) and probably cannot compete with natural hydrocarbons with current tech, electricity prices and carbon taxes. However compared to pure hydrogen it should have a couple of advantages: compact (same energy by volume as current fuels) and can take advantage of current infrastructure. If done right it could probably power both current ICE vehicles as well as future fuel-cell vehicles. Can anyone comment on any major downsides except it not really being economically viable with current tech. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel

darksaints 6y ago
Yes it is certainly viable. Far too many people think efficiency is going to be the deciding factor, but in reality we already have tons of energy that goes to waste, and it is only going to get larger with intermittent renewables. Over provisioning of renewables seems to be the current best option to deal with baseload demands from intermittent renewables, which will mean that the cost of surplus non-peak energy is going to trend toward $0/kWh. In the end, who cares if it takes 150kWh to make 50kWh of fuel if that 50kWh of fuel only costs $1? I'm 100% sure most trucking companies won't give a shit. This all would mean that efficiency doesn't really matter anymore, but rather the practical characteristics of the fuel. Liquid fuels, and many easily compressed fuels, are amazingly practical. Natural gas is already a viable fuel for many trucking applications, and synthesized methane is incredibly easy. But synthetic diesel and butane are also within the realm of possibilities.
xputer 6y ago
Yes tbh I don't understand why there isn't more attention devoted to making renewable fuels that are more practical than hydrogen. Until we find a better way to store hydrogen I don't think it'll ever take off.

kstenerud 6y ago

> Of the need to build the infrastructure at the same time as the trucks, Lundstedt said: “It can be seen as a chicken and egg. But we have said we will go for it. We will deliver the chicken. Someone else can deliver the egg.” Is it just me or does this sound incredibly naive?

athenot 6y ago

"hydrogen truck boom" I'm all for puns, but at some point we need to stop the association between hydrogen and explosiveness. Absent the perfect mix of H₂ and O₂, Hydrogen burns like most other fuels.

mywittyname 6y ago
Hydrogen burns until the point of stoichiometry, then, boom.
dokem 6y ago
My understanding is that Hydrogen is not like most other fuels and very much does like to go boom under a much wider range of oxygen concentrations, rather than burn. I think it may have to do with how little mass the hydrogen atom has. For instance, gasoline volatility over diesel is because it is refined for shorter hydrocarbon polymers, which have less mass. Hopefully someone can clarify this?
Pxtl 6y ago
Well, at the pressures you'd have to store it at I start worrying about a much more conventional type of boom than the flame-based kind.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
  I like that a pressure boom is neither deflagration nor detonation, it’s just “escape”but it’s the same sound and effect so we use the same word.

rich_sasha 6y ago

Is there anyone in the know on this thread as to how hydrogen compares to the other 'greenish' fuels? Ammonia, methane, methanol/ethanol etc. It always seems to me that hydrogen is just so, so hard to store, that just about any other fuel ought to be more practical. Cars running on natural gas already do exist, as does some infra - so maybe it's not such a far cry?

dukeofdoom 6y ago

Seems like Trucks would be ideal for swapping out batteries at refuelling stops. Since they more or less travel at the top speed limit.

Ericson2314 6y ago

Just do more freight trains already...

Mvandenbergh 6y ago

There's obviously a lot of complexities here and clear reasons why many in the transport industry think this is the solution. If they didn't Volvo and Daimler would be announcing their bet on BEV, right? Unlike oil majors, they have no sunk-cost reason to prefer one over the other and a lot of the technical change is shared between the platforms. A FCEV is just a BEV with a small battery, a small fuel cell, and a big hydrogen tank. That being the case, it feels a bit easy to just say, "obviously this doesn't make sense". However there are a few important differences between trucks and passenger cars that actually reduce some of the issues with EV trucking. A long-haul truck probably needs about 700kWh to 1MWh of battery storage. How long does that take to charge? Some constraints on passenger car charging become less relevant when you're serving a professional audience and can have staff on-site to help. Cable thickness / weight is an ergonomic constraint that can be relaxed if you are serving truckers and not the 99th percentile of the public. You can even mount them on articulated arms on a gantry so that you're not dragging them around. Multiple cables charging in parallel? Inconvenient on a passenger car, perfectly sensible on a truck. Liquid cooling loop to external chiller? Again, that just doesn't work if you're building tens of thousands of chargers for the public, may well be worthwhile on network of truck refilling stations. In the EU, there is already a mandatory 45 minute break every 4 hrs 30 mins. So there is no need for trucks that can drive for 12 hours on a tank. (US rules are in theory laxer but in practice insurance companies also insist on break rules). So the real question is whether you can make the charging process fast enough to get approx. 4:30 extra capacity in 45 minutes. That's probably about 800kWh in 40 minutes of actual charging (assume time to connect and disconnect) or 1.2MW. 350kW chargers are installed and operating now (though I'm not sure how many cars can actually use them at that power) so naively you would think that running 4 of those in parallel would give you the charging tech required to run trucks today. Hydrogen may still be cheaper for truck transport once you work out all the costs and logistics but I don't think it's wildly impossible either. The big advantage that hydrogen has is that the cost of hydrogen tanks scales much more slowly than batteries. If pack price is $100/kWh then you need $70k-$100k worth of batteries. Doesn't seem crazy for a truck but a tank that can hold equivalent H2 at pressure is much cheaper. Takes up a lot of space but trucking is mass limited rather than volume limited.

darksaints 6y ago

hollerith 6y ago

Hydrogen molecules are so inconvenient to store. It would be great if the hydrogen atoms were stored in the form of, e.g., octane, then the carbon atoms (from the octane) were recovered somehow so they don't accumulate in the atmosphere.

iamgopal 6y ago

What they know that I’m missing, for me, hydrogen is a dead horse.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Bapuff 6y ago

This truck will be mass produced by 2026 but there are some difficulties ahead First it is a liquid hydrogen one, second they are calling for massive investments from government Volvo is selling very well a lng truck, and the biolng theme makes it quite compelling.

jppope 6y ago

I still haven't figured out why solutions like MagLev trains aren't used for this problem...

throwawaysea 6y ago

How does hydrogen store over time? For example regular gasoline can be stored only for about six months.

auiya 6y ago

Every automaker is investing in many many different alternative drive train types. Volvo and Daimler are not putting all their money on black per se, just diversifying their R&D like everyone. Porsche and Toyota for instance are dumping money into synthetic fuel, but it doesn't mean they're anticipating any sort of synthetic fuel boom, they're just trying to be ready if it happens. This isn't news.