Swedish heavy-duty truck manufacturer Scania abandons hydrogen trucks and switches to battery electric vehicles

Hydrogen will definitely happen. It is a convenient (albeit inefficient) way of storing, transporting and exporting clean energy. It provides a huge energy density advantage for zero-emission aviation and shipping. Many people expect it to be found in long-distance truck transportation. Convincing’s application case, compared with battery trucks that need to be charged for a long time, its fast hydrogen refueling capability allows large trucks to travel longer on the road.

But Scania, the tenth largest truck company in the world, thinks otherwise. The company has launched batteries and fuel cell trucks and announced that it is committed to using batteries. After launching batteries and fuel cell trucks, the company announced that it will focus on batteries, citing the low efficiency of hydrogen’s use of renewable energy and the additional system complexity, cost, safety and continuous maintenance factors.

“Scania has invested in hydrogen technology,” the company wrote in a press release. “Currently, Scania is the only heavy-duty vehicle manufacturer that operates vehicles with customers. Engineers gained valuable insights from these early tests. , And will continue to work hard. However, the application of hydrogen in such applications will be limited in the future, because compared with battery electric trucks, the renewable electricity required to power a hydrogen truck is three times that. A large amount of energy That is, loss in the process of production, distribution and conversion back to electricity.”

“Repair and maintenance also need to be considered.” The company continued. “The cost of a hydrogen car will be higher than that of a battery electric car because its systems are more complex, such as extensive air and cooling systems. In addition, hydrogen is a volatile gas and requires more maintenance to ensure safety.”

Scania said that it will open the door to the development of fuel cell trucks in the future, but this is a fairly clear statement on this topic and an inspiration for the direction of the industry. As for how the battery electric vehicles will be superimposed, Scania has this to add: “In a few years, Scania plans to launch a long-distance electric truck with a total weight of 40 tons, which can travel for 4.5 hours and the driver will have a mandatory 45-minute rest period. Fast charging. By 2025, Scania predicts that electric vehicles will account for about 10% of total vehicle sales in Europe, and by 2030, 50% of our total vehicle sales are expected to be electrified.”