It looks like a completely normal diesel truck doing its rounds on DAF’s test track in Sint-Oedenrode. But it is potentially a spectacular innovation. This month, the truck manufacturer from Brabant showed its first product with a combustion engine that really runs on hydrogen. Without harmful emissions. And without the complex constructions that competitors are experimenting with.
Hydrogen can enjoy increasing interest from the truck world as a ‘clean’ fuel. Especially now that the European Union wants transport to be completely emission-free by 2050. Most truck manufacturers currently work with a fuel cell that converts the fueled hydrogen into electricity. That power goes to electric motors that drive the wheels. With its ‘H2 Innovation Truck’, DAF is so far the only one with an internal combustion engine (Internal Combustion Engine, ICE) running on hydrogen.
With this truck, DAF, a full subsidiary of the American truck manufacturer Paccar, shows that the combustion engine should not be written off for zero-emission driving. However, the H-truck in Sint-Oedenrode is emphatically a demonstration model. It will certainly not be on the market for the first five years. The makers are nevertheless convinced that the car can offer a solution for emission-free transport over long distances.
Other truck brands are more careful when it comes to hydrogen trucks. The Swedish Scania, which builds a large part of its trucks in the Netherlands, recently announced that it is fully committed to battery-electric trucks. “Over the next ten to fifteen years, these will form the backbone of our sustainability efforts,” says Janko van der Baan, managing director of Scania Benelux. In his view, hydrogen is currently primarily a raw material for industrial processes.
European market leader Mercedes-Benz is currently testing a hydrogen truck with fuel cells, which will be used for some customers from 2023. The Italian Iveco has teamed up with the American start-up Nikola, which should deliver a fuel cell truck with a range of at least a thousand kilometers by 2023. A new factory has been set up in Ulm, Germany, which will initially only build electrically powered trucks.
The German MAN, just like Scania part of Volkswagen subsidiary Traton, is also working on a hydrogen combustion engine, but is struggling with relatively high consumption figures.
deliver beer
DAF has fewer problems with that. It fitted an existing thirteen-litre diesel engine with a new combustion system, new cylinder liners, piston rings and pistons. Since hydrogen has a lower energy density than diesel, a direct fuel injection system has been developed. In addition, this new technology had to be subtly ‘tuned in’. The storage of hydrogen, in tanks that are located in the chassis and fit behind the cab, also took a lot of development time. DAF does not provide any details about the costs of this development (turnover 2020: 4.4 billion euros).
Also read this piece: Paying at the pump for a green hydrogen industry
But the end result is now driving around. At most, because of the (even) lower torque, the H-truck needs higher speeds to deliver the same pulling power as diesel engines.
DAF also sells electrically powered trucks, just like almost any other brand, but transport operators are hesitant to purchase them. E-trucks are not yet suitable for long-distance transport. They are strong enough, but too dependent on a dense network of charging points – and there isn’t one yet.
Delivering beer to cafes in the center of Amsterdam and stocking supermarkets is fine with an e-truck, but driving from Utrecht to Milan or Malaga is a different story. Ron Borsboom, director of product development at DAF: “To cross the Alps you soon need 500 hp power, and due to distance and infrastructure that is now only possible with a combustion engine.”
Then there is the time that is wasted charging batteries. “A passenger car stands still 90 percent of the time, but a truck is a production machine. He has to drive. Every hour of downtime costs money. Then you don’t want to lose too much time due to frequent and prolonged charging of the batteries.”
Coal plants
A truck with a hydrogen combustion engine does not have these loading disadvantages. Refueling is almost as fast as taking up diesel oil, and the range, at eight hundred kilometers, is much longer than with battery trucks. In the coming years, they will not reach more than four hundred kilometers on a single battery charge.
But we are not there with the technology in the truck alone, warns Borsboom. “The pace of all further developments is determined by the availability of green hydrogen. It makes no sense to work with hydrogen generated using coal-fired power stations.” After all, the production of such hydrogen from coal is still highly polluting.
But once the green hydrogen is available, a refueling network that is suitable for heavy vehicles must also be created. Not only in the Netherlands, but throughout Europe, and certainly along the routes for long-distance transport, says Borsboom.
Other brands, Volvo Trucks, Iveco and Mercedes in the lead, endorse this need for a good refueling infrastructure. For hydrogen, just like for battery propulsion, the pace of the energy transition is determined by availability and (charging) infrastructure. And the truck industry is once again looking to national and international governments for this.
The poor infrastructure is also the biggest drawback for DAF’s H2 truck. The Netherlands has nine hydrogen filling stations, not all of which are even public. Germany is doing slightly better with just under a hundred tapping points, but more pressure is needed to be able to refuel trucks with hydrogen. Now it is possible to load up to 350 bar, which is even on the lean side for some passenger cars. Charging systems of at least 700 bar will have to be installed, so that refueling does not take up too much valuable time.
Like other truck manufacturers, DAF needs time to further develop hydrogen combustion technology. The current mobile prototype was built remarkably quickly, but the car was not ready for production until the second half of the 1920s. The fact that the Japanese Toyota is already experimenting with a passenger car with a hydrogen combustion engine does not say much. Passenger cars are developed for a maximum of 200,000 kilometres, for trucks this is easily 1.6 million kilometres. An advantage of hydrogen in a combustion engine – such as with DAF – is that the quality of the hydrogen is less important. When used in a fuel cell, this is much more important.
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