High time for heavy duty hydrogen trucks

One kilogram of hydrogen has the same energy density as a gallon of diesel, but manufacturers won’t invest in the development of fuel cell electric trucks if there is little or no refueling infrastructure in place for customers.

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“To encourage adoption, hydrogen faces similar issues to battery EVs – the need for infrastructure and volume manufacture of vehicles to reduce costs. Battery EVs need charging points and sometimes grid reinforcement; hydrogen vehicles need refuelling stations,” Mark Griffin, market development manager for clean fuels, BOC told The Engineer.

It’s a conundrum that has helped stymie the adoption of hydrogen as a fuel source for heavy-duty vehicles, but this is about to change with tightening tailpipe emissions standards and a drop in the financial - and environmental - cost of producing it.

The EU has mandated that from 2025, heavy-duty vehicles will have to emit 15 per cent less CO2, rising to 30 per cent from 2030. The organisation adds that as a first step, the CO2 emission standards will cover large lorries, which account for 65-to-70 per cent of all CO2 emissions from heavy-duty vehicles. In the UK, the government’s Road to Zero Strategy is driving the transition to zero emissions across all vehicle types for public, commercial and private transport.