This start-up wants to replace diesel

Dusseldorf Logistics, as Dirk Graszt knows, can be pretty sluggish. In his decades in the industry, the experienced manager has got to know almost all areas. He was sales director, fleet manager and finally CEO of a large transport service provider – and at some point just annoyed by the fact that most logistics companies find it so difficult to part with diesel.

“That frustrated me a lot,” Graszt recalls today. Actually, the energy turnaround on the road should have top priority for the industry: Instead, according to the Federal Environment Agency, CO2 emissions from road freight transport increased by 17 percent to 45.9 million tons between 1995 and 2020. Graszt wants to do it better – and make the diesel superfluous.

With his company Clean Logistics, he is developing a hydrogen truck that should be ready for the market as early as next year: The tractor unit, which the company has christened “Fyuriant”, runs on fuel cells and H2 tanks that store around 40 kilograms of hydrogen be able. The model has a range of 500 kilometers – without emissions.

With Dirk Lehmann, Graszt brought real hydrogen expertise on board when the company was founded in 2018: As head of Becker Marine Systems, Lehmann had already developed hydrogen-based energy-saving systems for giant tankers in 2001. The entrepreneur, who calls himself an “energy pioneer”, has thus saved more than twelve million tons of CO2. Lehmann does not want to rest on his laurels after winning the “German Environmental Prize” which will be presented to him by the Federal President on October 30th. Together with Graszt, he now wants to put hydrogen on the road.

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Graszt knows the industry, Lehmann the technologies: both want to deliver 5,000 hydrogen-powered trucks by 2027. A corresponding framework agreement with the energy service provider GP Joule was signed in August. In addition, customers have already submitted around 130 funding applications for the coming year, the founders explain.

Contested market, high subsidies

The federal government subsidizes the purchase of H2 trucks and supported Clean Logistics with 3.3 million euros during the development phase. The founders are convinced that hydrogen is the best alternative in the race for the truck drive of the future.

>> Read here: EU pushes hydrogen expansion with another five billion euros

H2 drives are considered emission-free because a fuel cell has exactly two by-products: electricity and water vapour. If the hydrogen is to be “green”, solar and wind energy are used to produce it. “In its purest form, hydrogen is the cleanest fuel that mankind could wish for,” says Lehmann.

The market seems lucrative, but it is highly competitive: not only industry giants like Daimler Truck and Volvo, but also financially strong start-ups like Nikola are also pursuing the idea of ​​making hydrogen trucks market-ready.

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3.3

million euros in subsidies

was given to Clean Logistics by the federal government during the development phase.

So far, the company’s 180 employees have been less vehicle builders and more vehicle convertors: Clean Logistics is currently converting existing diesel trucks to H2 drive. They gut all the components of the combustion engine and make the 40-ton truck suitable for hydrogen.

Future of H2 technology is “uncertain”

The contract with GP Joule is the company’s entry into the production of its own trucks. Most recently, Clean Logistics took over the Dutch vehicle manufacturer GINAF to implement this ambitious plan. In the next three years alone, the company intends to hire up to 500 more employees. The production capacities are constantly being expanded.

Others in the industry do not believe in the rapid breakthrough of hydrogen propulsion. At the IAA Transportation in Hanover, MAN boss Alexander Vlaskamp recently criticized the energy balance of the H2 trucks in an interview with the Handelsblatt: “For the electrically operated truck you need – figuratively speaking – the power of a wind turbine. You need three wind turbines for a truck with a fuel cell.”

>> Also read: From hydrogen transporters to luxury trucks – the most important innovations at IAA Transportation 2022

The future of the hydrogen industry is uncertain, agrees Nikolaos Soulopoulos, chief analyst for the transport division at strategy service provider BloombergNEF. The three key questions are: “At what cost will we be able to build H2 trucks in the future? At what price will we be able to produce and deliver hydrogen? And how big will the demand for the trucks be in the future?”

“To put it figuratively, you need the power of a wind turbine for an electrically powered truck. You need three wind turbines for a truck with a fuel cell.” MAN boss Alexander Vlaskamp

For the customers of the truck builders, the overall costs of a drive are of crucial importance. You do not calculate with purchase prices, but with the so-called total costs of ownership – this includes acquisition and all operating costs. Without government funding, hydrogen trucks would not be competitive here: When purchasing the H2-powered semitrailer tractor, the federal government subsidizes up to 80 percent of the additional expenditure. An H2 truck costs only around 80,000 euros more than its diesel counterpart.

In order to be able to produce H2 trucks at a marketable price, even large manufacturers have to work together, emphasizes Soulopoulos. This is also shown by the cooperation between the “two major competitors” Daimler Truck and Volvo, who are working together on a truck model with a fuel cell. Your desired start date for production: 2025.

Clean Logistics, on the other hand, wants to start production as early as next year. “The goal must be to significantly reduce prices compared to today’s prices within the next two to three years,” says Graszt. This can only work by expanding production and correspondingly higher quantities. “We’ll have to do without the subsidies at some point.”

The federal government subsidizes the construction and purchase of H2 trucks

He is counting on the pressure on the industry to move away from diesel. “If a freight forwarder is not able to make deliveries sustainable, then it will be difficult for him in the future,” says Graszt. That’s why he “doesn’t have to actively go into customer acquisition,” he recently explained in an interview. The high demand and the low supply of alternative truck drives “inevitably lead to higher prices”.

BloombergNEF analyst Nikolaos Soulopoulos sees it differently. The basic interest in fuel cell trucks is huge. “However, demand in Europe and the USA is very low.” There is a kind of longing to decarbonize fleets by 2030 or 2040, “but currently almost nobody is buying hydrogen trucks.” The industry is still unsure which technology will prevail.

The analyst himself gives the battery drive better chances, at least over shorter distances. The H2 drive could be more suitable for long distances alone because the technology is significantly lighter. But battery-electric competition is growing here too: “Daimler is developing battery-powered trucks for distances of up to 500 kilometers. That is enough to cover almost 60 percent of the demand in Europe,” says Soulopoulos.

“The prices for hydrogen and fuel cells will fall over the years,” predicts the analyst, “but battery technology will also continue to develop – and that could leave little room for alternatives.”

More: From hydrogen transporters to luxury trucks – the most important innovations at IAA Transportation 2022

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