New York, Cologne The gleaming white hall in Chicago, in which the team from the start-up Hyzon is working on the future of mobility, has something of the character of a laboratory. The heart of the development work is as big as a cupboard and grey-blue with orange-colored power cables: the company’s own fuel cell. It is being developed for use in trucks. Hyzon’s work on more climate-friendly freight transport has ensured that the company is now valued at just under a billion dollars. The delivery of the first tractors equipped with the company’s own technology is planned for 2023
The path began in 2003 with students at the University of Chicago, says Managing Director Craig Knight. “Everyone was fascinated by the fuel cell, its design, its commercialization.” In 2010, supported by the German Linde Group, the first air-cooled fuel cell was launched, with low power but mobile. “These were portable devices for powering remote areas,” Knight explains. “Things really got going seven years ago when the use in mobility became interesting.”
In the future, the fuel cells will also be delivered to Cologne. Sara Schiffer heads the Hylane company there, a DEVK spin-off. The mutual insurance association, once founded by railway workers, is active in many places in the transport sector. DEVK is now embarking on the hydrogen experiment.
“We no longer just wanted to talk about climate-neutral transport, we wanted to do it,” says Schiffer. “Hydrogen technology is new and needs to be used in practice.” Hylane buys the relevant trucks and leases them to transport companies.
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The first partners have already signed, from the Dax group to medium-sized companies. They include the Deutsche Bahn subsidiary Schenker, recently the consumer goods group Henkel, the logistics companies Hermes and Koch and the event service provider Mitea.
Generous Funding
Hylane plans to purchase at least 44 fuel cell trucks by 2023. The state subsidy covers 80 percent of the additional costs incurred when purchasing a hydrogen truck compared to a diesel truck. The Federal Ministry of Transport approved the funding decision in June. According to a Hylanes sample calculation, a new hydrogen truck costs 500,000 euros. The classic diesel costs about 100,000 euros. In this example, the funding covers 320,000 euros of the acquisition costs.
The longer the vehicles are in use at Hylane, the cheaper the project will be. According to internal calculations, the rental costs for a hydrogen semi-trailer truck over six years should be 70 cents per kilometer. A diesel truck costs 50 cents. Without federal funding, however, the costs would be up to two euros per kilometer.
In total, the federal funding in the first tranche amounts to 15 million euros. “We were on the move opportunistically,” explains DEVK board member Bernd Zens. “We want to invest green and remain connected to the transport market.” Its greatest task for the future is decarbonization.
The Hyzon trucks that the Cologne-based start-up Hylane wants to import from Chicago could look something like this.
The first seven trucks are due to arrive in Germany in the next few days. They don’t come from Hyzon yet, they come from Hyundai. The South Korean manufacturer will deliver 17 trucks, two coming from Daimler Truck, two from Framo and from next year 23 from Hyzon. The long-hyped US provider Nikola is not yet far enough. By 2024, Hylane wants to have 150 vehicles on the road.
The advantage of hydrogen
Hyzon boss Knight is certain that his trucks will pass the practical test: “The electrification of large trucks doesn’t work. We’re talking about 40 ton vehicles that are driven 18 or 20 hours a day. These cannot be converted to battery operation.” The initial spark, as Knight calls it, came from Asia: “The Chinese government was the first to decide to promote hydrogen transporters to reduce pollution in large cities.”
The problem with battery trucks is the size and weight of the battery. “Our motor is also electric, but the necessary energy is generated as needed.” Refueling with hydrogen is expensive, but more practical. Electric trucks, for example, would need special charging stations.
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“Do you know how much electricity Tesla uses for its trucks? 750 kilowatts for a quick charge,” says Knight. “There aren’t many places where a 750-kilowatt socket is available. The infrastructure is simply missing. And even where they exist, these pillars pose enormous challenges for the power grid, both at the charging point and in distribution and generation.”
It is different with hydrogen: In order to convert the large overland trucks that drive across the USA, only the appropriate gas pumps would have to be set up at the existing gas stations. In fact, according to calculations by the environmental organization Clean Air Task Force from Boston, eight to twelve times fewer filling stations are required than for battery-powered trucks due to the greater range per filling.
The head of the Fuel Cell Technology Center at the University of California, Irvine, points out another aspect. “Hydrogen is light. You can put a lot of that on board a vehicle and it can still carry its full payload,” says Jack Brouwer.
skepticism about the technology
But not everyone is so convinced of the technology. “It is still completely open which type of drive will ultimately prevail. As always, the market decides,” says Christian Koenig. The car expert has worked for Porsche in North America and runs an electromobility consultancy in Atlanta.
“First of all, hydrogen has to be produced in large quantities, which requires new production facilities. And hydrogen is not green per se, it depends on what energy source is used in the production. In addition, production is particularly energy-intensive,” says Koenig. In addition, it is highly flammable.
There are still only a few hydrogen filling stations in Germany.
(Photo: dpa)
The hydrogen drive is also not fundamentally better when it comes to charging and range. So far, the necessary tank infrastructure has been completely missing. In addition, the battery range is growing steadily: “Today there are vehicles that can cover up to 500 miles per charge. Hydrogen trucks are still in the lead on long-haul routes. But that can change.”
>> Read also: Alternative to the e-car or window dressing? The most important questions and answers about e-fuels
Even industry players like Andy Marsh, CEO of US fuel cell maker Plug Power, believe that hydrogen technology will catch on in industry first, not in transportation. “It’s going to take a long time to build the necessary network,” says Marsh.
The VW subsidiary Traton (MAN, Scania), for example, relies entirely on battery power. From the point of view of the Munich-based company, large investments in fuel cells are a complete waste of money. Three quarters of the energy was wasted in hydrogen trucks due to poor efficiency. With battery trucks, on the other hand, the relationship is exactly the opposite, Traton argues. MAN wants to bring the first real battery trucks with a range of 600 to 800 kilometers onto the market by 2025. With new battery generations, 1000 kilometers are also possible in the second half of the decade.
Tesla is also fully committed to e-mobility. The truck presented in 2017, called Semi, is still a long time coming. According to Tesla boss Elon Musk, production should not start before 2023.
Two-pronged strategy
Other manufacturers, including Volvo Truck and Daimler Truck, are taking multiple approaches. On the one hand, Daimler is building an America-wide charging network for electric commercial vehicles, which is intended to increase customer acceptance of the new drive technology. In addition to Daimler, the US investment company Blackrock and the power plant division of the US energy company Nextera are on board. The initial funding for the project amounts to around 650 million dollars and is to be provided equally by the three partners.
On the other hand, Daimler is pushing ahead with the practical suitability of the hydrogen drive. “Hydrogen trucks can be a sensible option for our customers, especially in tough long-distance transport operations,” says Chief Technology Officer Andreas Gorbach to the Handelsblatt.
We have the ambition to only offer new vehicles in our global core markets by 2039 that are CO2-neutral in driving operation. Daimler Chief Technology Officer Andreas Gorbach
As one of the world’s largest commercial vehicle manufacturers, Daimler is committed to the Paris climate agreement. “We have the ambition to only offer new vehicles in our global core markets that are CO2-neutral in driving operation by 2039,” explains Gorbach. In the future, every customer will receive a tailor-made solution without CO2 emissions for every transport task – for example electric trucks for short distances and hydrogen trucks for long distances. “We will successfully bring both technologies onto the road.”
Since 2021, the fuel cell prototype “GenH2 Truck” has been tested on the company’s own test track and on public roads. A range of 1000 kilometers and more is planned. Series production is scheduled to start in the second half of the decade.
Crucial practical test
So there is still a lot to be tested. In the automotive industry, therefore, one looks closely at the Hylane project. The aim is to start as quickly as possible, says Boss Schiffer. That’s why the rental model was chosen. “Our users do not have to take the financing risk and do not have high acquisition costs.”
One of the challenges now is the development of the filling station network. The industrial gases group Linde has agreed to build two filling stations on its own account, and more must follow quickly, says Schiffer. Hylane is therefore working with the start-up H2 Mobility from Berlin to expand the network: “Filling up takes ten to 15 minutes.”
“Hydrogen technology is very promising,” explains DEVK board member Zens. But it is also clear: “We are not engineers. Only the practical test, which we are about to start, can show whether the technology works. Somebody has to start.”
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