Zero emissions Stellantis will have hydrogen fuel cell vans this year
ACEA Manufacturers request 1,000 hydrogenerators by 2030
The supporters of using hydrogen for road transport move token in the chess game in which this element has become.
Stellantis, the manufacturer born from the merger of PSA and FCA, has been the last.
Peugeot, one of its brands, will sell
its e-EXPERT Hydrogen van to professional customers
from the
end of this year, which uses a hydrogen battery to offer a range of more than 400 kilometers with zero emissions.
This is the first fruit of a project announced in early April by the manufacturer, which will also offer this technology in Citroën and Opel, as well as Fiat in the future.
To do this, it has resorted to an easy way with a more thoughtful investment: to
use the base of the 100% electric versions of those same vans, of which they will be complementary in the commercial plane.
In fact, they have the same engine and the battery hole is used to place the hydrogen tanks, which can be refueled in less than three minutes.
In addition,
an extra 10.5 kWh battery is added, with a range of about 50 kilometers,
which will be responsible for moving the vehicle when starting and at low speeds, or will support the performance of the battery.
Thus posed, there is no reduction in the load capacities, which reaches up to 6.1 m³, or 1,100 kilos, which is also its towing capacity
.
This, reinforced by the fact that they will be able to move freely through the city centers and their surroundings.
"80% of our clients do not travel more than 200 kilometers a day", they assured Stellantis
when they presented this project, which goes a step further than the one already underway at Renault.
In this case, the French group bets on vans where the bulk of the displacement is assumed by a large capacity battery, but a small hydrogen battery is added that allows to extend the autonomy.
Hyundai: 1,600 trucks in Europe by 2025
The third alternative is to entrust everything to the battery, which is the formula for passenger cars such as the Toyota Mirai and the buses developed by it; or
Hyundai's
Nexo
, which has just introduced an improved version of the XCIENT Fuel Cell, the world's first mass-produced, hydrogen-powered heavy truck
. It has seven large tanks for fuel, totaling 31 kilos for
a range of about 400 kilometers and a power close to 500 kilometers, which has now allowed the introduction of a 6x2 version,
with more load capacity, in addition to the 4x2 already. existing version of the first version.
Of this, 46 units are already circulating in Switzerland, where they have traveled more than 750,000 kilometers avoiding the emission of 585 tons of CO2 compared to other trucks with diesel engines.
Of the new model, which will begin to be manufactured in August of this year, it will deliver another 140 units also in Switzerland,
although the goal is to extend it to other European countries until reaching a fleet of 1,600 trucks with this technology in 2025. North America and China also They are on the roadmap.
A couple of years later, it
was Mercedes-Benz that delivered the first units of the GenH2, the hydrogen fuel cell truck for which it has partnered with Volvo
.
Testing of this vehicle on the open road will begin in 2023 and it will have a range of more than 1,000 kilometers.
Cheaper to operate than diesel
When it goes on sale, the builder claims that these models will be cheaper to buy and operate than diesel models.
Meanwhile, for shorter distances (radios of up to 400 km), it does consider 100% electric models suitable since their batteries do not reduce the load capacity as much as in one destined for international transport.
Specifically, it expects that 60% of the trucks it delivers in 2030 will be zero emissions.
In addition, within the same project, it has partnered with the oil company Shell to create a hydrogen recharge infrastructure that will start in 2024 in Germany and the Netherlands.
Because for both 100% battery-powered and hydrogen-powered trucks, the development of a well-dimensioned recharging network is crucial. "Without it, it is as if our products are worth zero."
In fact, right now there are barely 25 hydrogenerators in France and 90 in Germany, while in our country the few that there are (six) are not publicly accessible.
On this matter, the European employers' association of vehicle manufacturers, Acea, estimates that in 2025 there should be a minimum of 300 stations of this type in Europe;
and about 1,000 in 2030, located no more than 200 kilometers from each other on the major connecting axes, if a fleet of 60,000 fuel cell trucks is to be reached.
The other great challenge is to lower the costs of production and transport of the so-called green hydrogen, which is the only one that makes sense to use if you want to contribute to decarbonization.
This is defended by the EU, which aspires to mobilize 450,000 million in public-private investment to expand its use.
Against its use for transportation
According to a study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, this use should be limited to the sectors that are most difficult to decarbonise, such as steel production, aviation and shipping. And in the rest, resort to electricity stored in batteries. And, the researchers calculate,
using hydrogen to create the energy that heating homes requires between six and 14 times more electricity than if conventional heat pumps are used. And in the case of the car, five times more
than what is spent with a battery car.
“Regardless of the weight of the batteries, the cost per kilometer using hydrogen is triple that of a battery-powered truck.
And you will not see a car circulating anymore, which is, in essence, a more complex electric vehicle, ”Herbert Diess, a boss of the VW Group, who leads the most critical of technology, long ago assured.
And without leaving the German consortium, Fermín Soneira, head of the e-tron range of electric cars at Audi, clarified this to this newspaper considering what is called from the well to the wheel.
"An electric car receives 80% of its energy from renewable sources and uses it with an 80% efficiency. On the other hand, a fuel cell car, which also uses it with the same efficiency, only receives 15% of it. the energy generated in the process.
The rest is lost in creating the hydrogen, transporting it and storing it. "
In addition, there is the cost of the hydrogenerators, with a network as marginal as it is expensive: a hydrogen refueling station is around one million euros, compared to 100,000 euros for an ultra-fast electric recharging pole.
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