For the freight industry, change is coming: it’s rolling down the road and gaining speed every day. That change is zero-emission trucks.
As freight transportation is expected to increase 40% by 2050, the move toward cleaner trucking is being accelerated by government regulations and consumer pressure, with some manufacturers making significant investments.
For heavy transport applications, there is growing consensus that the most suitable powertrain is hydrogen fuel cell electric.
Fuel cells deliver the range, payload capacity, refuel time and all-weather performance that commercial trucking needs.
They know that the transition to zero-emission fleets is inevitable, but they want the changeover to be efficient, smooth, and cost-effective, and they’re not sure where to begin.
So in this article, we’ll help bridge that gap by outlining Ballard’s roadmap to zero-emission freight transport for truck operators and vehicle OEMs.
Among the zero-emissions alternatives, only hydrogen fuel cells offer enough power, range, payload performance, and refueling speed to compare with diesel:
Fuel cell trucks are especially well suited to long-haul trucking, long duty cycles and for heavyweight cargo like beverage trucks and drayage trucks.
This includes medium to heavy duty (class 4 to 8) vehicles more than 200 miles/350km per day.
While we’re in an earlier phase, the transition to zero-emission truck fleets has definitely begun.
Truck emission regulations are now in place in Europe and China, and are being developed in California. OEMs and operators are under pressure to change out their diesel powertrains.
Fuel cells are an established, mature zero-emissions technology for heavy duty powertrains and their value for truck applications is being recognized with growing investments by companies such as Daimler Truck, Volvo, Nikola, Bosch, Cummins and Weichai.
It’s clear that hydrogen will be a key player in the decarbonization of the heavy-duty transportation sector (which is more difficult to abate than light duty vehicles, where most use cases are a good match for batteries since they require lower range and utilization.)
Furthermore, the cost of low-carbon hydrogen has been dropping year after year, driven by the current low cost of renewable energy and the emergence of carbon capture technology.
For OEMs and transport operators, Ballard is the fuel cell technology partner with global experience. Over 2,000 Ballard-powered fuel cell trucks have been deployed in China since 2018.
These are the world’s largest operating fleets of fuel cell powered commercial vehicles.
To date, commercial trucks and buses with Ballard fuel cell technology inside have travelled more than 30 million kilometres and one million operating hours on the road.
At Ballard, we’re continually improving our technologies.
Over the years, we’ve significantly reduced the lifecycle cost of our fuel cells while improving performance, and our product roadmap is designed to make our products more accessible to truck operators and OEMs.
Our fuel cell products must meet strict technical and performance truck requirements, with:
Because different vehicles have different power requirements based on their size and usage, Ballard is committed to offering a complete range of fuel cell product configurations and sizes, from 45kW to 400kW over the next few years.
We’ve already launched the first product of our new FCmove™ platform with a 70kW version. We’ll be making new product release announcements in the coming months.
Ballard is a long-term partner, with a commitment to assisting freight operators and OEMs adopt fuel cell technology. We:
“In less than 10 years, it will become cheaper to run a fuel cell electric vehicle than it is to run a battery electric vehicle or an internal combustion engine vehicle for certain commercial applications.”
To expedite the widespread deployment of fuel cell trucks, some cost and infrastructure factors still need to be addressed—but efforts are underway:
The world is finally making its move toward clean energy—with governments, and some automotive companies leading the way.
At Ballard, we believe that fuel cells offer the cleanest, best-performing alternative to diesel power for trucking and we are developing a range of high performance durable fuel cell systems to meet the industry requirements.
For a forward-looking OEM or fleet operator, we have the technology, the expertise, the intellectual property, and the road experience to make fuel cell trucks cleaner, more accessible and more affordable.
Our product road map uses standard technology building blocks to serve a variety of transport applications in order to enable the widespread adoption of fuel cell based zero emission mobility.