HyTrucks : Un millier de camions à hydrogène d'ici 2025

« Air Liquide est la locomotive de HyTrucks »

HyTrucks wants at least a thousand heavy-duty hydrogen trucks on the road by 2025. By the same time, they also want to have at least 25 operational hydrogen refuelling stations. The trucks will be deployed mainly in the triangle between three of the major logistics hotspots in Western Europe — the ports of Rotterdam, Antwerp and Duisburg — as well as in Germany, Luxembourg and France.

Putting such an ambitious plan into practice successfully means a lot of consultation. That’s why Air Liquide — who initiated the project — decided to set up an international consultative body bringing together European shippers, carriers, truck manufacturers, filling station operators, and hydrogen suppliers. Alongside Air Liquide, the founding members are the Port of Rotterdam, the Port of Antwerp, the city of Duisburg and DATS24. Meanwhile, the consortium already comprises more than 70 companies and governments.

All aboard

"HyTrucks revolves around two basic ideas," explains Chris Lefrère, who currently heads up the HyTrucks project. "The first of these is that the switch from diesel to hydrogen ecosystems can only succeed if all the relevant parties are involved. Otherwise, you soon end up with a typical chicken-and-egg situation, as can happen more often when a completely new ecosystem has to be started up, with one waiting for the other to take the initiative. It obviously doesn't work that way."

"The second basic idea is that hydrogen is very suitable as an energy carrier for heavy transport. That's because you need to be able to carry large amounts of energy to move large weights — the cargo — over long distances. If you want to do that emission-free, you have two options: electric with batteries or hydrogen."

3.2-tonne battery systems

"Batteries definitely have their strengths but, for heavy duty transport, they’re not the best choice for a number of reasons. For a start, there’s very little space available on a tractor unit for battery packs” — in the transport world, tractors and trailers are considered as separate elements for the flexibility they need, often they even have different owners, Ed.

"Truck combinations also have to adhere to a certain maximum weight. In other words, the heavier the battery pack, the less space there’s left for commercial loading and thus the higher the TCO (traditionally expressed in Euros per tonne per kilometre). A battery system has to be able to deliver a lot of energy over a long period of time, and that only works if you make the battery pack large and heavy."

"A 44-tonne truck with a range of 800 km requires a battery of more than 1,000 kWh. Such a battery weighs 3.2 tonnes. With a hydrogen fuel cell truck, the whole thing — i.e. the fuel cell and hydrogen cylinders together — weighs only a third of that.”

“Not just that, the charging times of a battery-powered truck are 12 times longer, which means that refuelling station areas have to be 12 times bigger. At least, that is, if they want to deliver the same range to the same number of trucks. And finally, heavy investment in charging stations is also needed. A charging station can cost roughly the same as a diesel truck.”

Spicy price tags

"That’s not to say that battery electric vehicles are not good or useful. They are. The less energy a vehicle needs to be able to carry — with an electric bike being the extreme — the better a battery-based system will work.  Electric propulsion is also well suited to small city cars. But as soon as you move to larger cars and light freight vehicles you get to a point where the balance starts to tip towards hydrogen."

Hydrogen trucks and electric trucks currently cost three to five times the price of a traditional diesel truck. As a result, transporters can only make the switch if they are supported by governments.

The German government has allocated a billion-dollar budget to pay back 80% of the extra price of a zero-emission truck compared to a diesel truck, and also to subsidise hydrogen stations by 80%. In the Netherlands, the government has a roadmap to €250 million a year planned for the greening of heavy goods traffic, and in France a new subsidy call is due in 2023 with a budget of around €275 million. Belgian transport entrepreneurs have to do without (Brussels and Wallonia) or with very modest (Flanders) subsidies, for the time being, despite the sharply increased kilometer charge.

Deus ex machina: H2ICE

"Already last year, truck engine manufacturers proved that they can build efficient zero emission internal combustion engines that meet all the Euro 7 emission standards and run exclusively on hydrogen: H2ICE. The cost of an H2ICE truck will be little more than a traditional diesel truck. Not surprisingly, 90% of truck manufacturers are already working on this behind the scenes. In fact, elsewhere in the world — including in India — H2ICE trucks are already on the market."

"As well as these benefits, H2ICE is also a hit for Europe, which is lagging in the fields of batteries and fuel cells, especially compared to Asian countries. As far as combustion engine know-how is concerned, we are a forerunner."

"ACEA — that's the European association of vehicle manufacturers — and the IRU, the global association of transport companies, have recently indicated that we need internal combustion engines to run on hydrogen if we want to meet the CO₂ reduction targets already set. And when HyTrucks surveyed its transport operator members in late 2022, it revealed that half of them would opt for H2ICE-powered trucks already."

Starter motor

"No company can single-handedly achieve the decarbonisation of 6.2 million heavy trucks in Europe. This requires the transition of an entire value chain involving shippers, transport operators, filling station operators, hydrogen producers, truck manufacturers, and suppliers."

"If I may use the analogy of the engine for a moment, we can say that Air Liquide has been the starter motor to get the HyTrucks value chain going. What is unique (and says a lot about the company) is that, in the interest of HyTrucks consortium' success, Air Liquide — as initiator — opened it up to all interested players, including its own competitors. This shows Air Liquide's global commitment to help create a more sustainable world."

"There are few companies worldwide that have accumulated decades of knowledge and experience to produce, transport, store and distribute hydrogen. Air Liquide is among that select few, because they have been working with hydrogen for industrial and mobility applications for decades. In this way they have built up the necessary knowledge and experience to be a first-mover and scale up the energy transition, in particular in the heavy duty transport sector."

Are you looking for solutions or a strategic partnership in the field of hydrogen?