Both Class 8 trucks ascended the famed road without any harmful tailpipe emissions, being the first of their kind to do so.
The hillclimb route up to Pikes Peak in Colorado is renowned as one of the most grueling and challenging of its kind, through its mix of length, altitude and myriad of treacherous high-speed turns. You’d not expect it to be used to promote alternatively powered Class 8 trucks, but that’s exactly what PACCAR did with models from its Peterbilt and Kenworth brands.
According to Kyle Quinn, PACCAR chief technology officer, they
‘ Are very excited about the work Kenworth and Peterbilt have done in the development of zero emissions technology. Conquering Pikes Peak demonstrates PACCAR’s leadership in fuel cell and commercial vehicle electrification. ‘
The trucks that did it are Peterbilt Model 579EV battery electric truck and the Kenworth T680 fuel cell electric truck are apparently the first Class 8 zero emissions vehicles to be driven all the way up to the 14,115-foot (4,302-meter) peak.
With up to 670 horsepower and 150 miles (241 km) of range from its thermally-controlled lithium iron phosphate battery pack, the Model 579EV is an electric truck that is already seeing active service. There are apparently already 22 units on the road right now.
Jason Skoog, Peterbilt general manager and PACCAR vice president, explained that
‘ Taking the Peterbilt Model 579EV to the summit of ‘America’s Mountain’ is an important milestone for Peterbilt and our entire lineup of battery electric commercial vehicles. Being the first battery electric Class 8 truck to climb to the top of Pikes Peak is further validation of all the real-world miles Peterbilt has accumulated across our entire EV test fleet and demonstrates we are ready to deliver production vehicles to our customers next year. ‘
(Bloomberg) -- China’s push for more fuel-cell vehicles is inspiring startup Anhui Mingtian Hydrogen Energy Technology Co. to step up its growth, with the technology provider working on fresh fundraising en route toward an initial share sale.
Mingtian is talking to investors and plans to raise about 200 million yuan ($30 million) at a valuation of as much as 2 billion yuan by the end of the first half next year, Chairman Wang Chaoyun said in an interview in Beijing. The company wants an initial public offering on Shanghai’s Star Board in three years, he said.
While there are few hydrogen cars on China’s roads, the government unveiled the first national policy this year that’s aimed at boosting demand for the environmentally friendly vehicles. Annual sales of fuel-cell vehicles in China are set to rise by 10 times in five years to 50,000 units before hitting half a million by 2035, Wang estimated.
“The government polices are like a blessing” for the industry, Wang said. “The market is heating up.”
China has been providing subsidies to buyers of fuel-cell vehicles since 2009, but demand has been low. As of July, there were only about 7,200 fuel-cell automobiles in use and 80 hydrogen charging stations in the country. That compares with millions of battery-electric cars, seen as an alternative to hydrogen vehicles.In September, the government announced new steps to accelerate the fuel-cell segment’s growth. Among the measures, it said it is introducing rewards to cities that carry out hydrogen-vehicle pilots.
Mingtian, which means bright sky in Chinese, develops fuel-cell stacks and other inner workings for hydrogen vehicles. The company expects to have its stacks installed in 2,000 vehicles in 2022 and about 10,000 vehicles in 2025, Wang said.
The hydrogen fuel cell-powered Hyundai Nexo was first shown to the public in early 2018 but unless you're a resident of California, it's not for sale elsewhere in the US. That's a shame because the Nexo is a mid-size premium crossover built on its own unique platform (it's around the size of a Hyundai Tucson) boasting an EPA rated range of up to 380 miles on a full charge. The other downside is its $60,000 or so price tag. Advanced fuel cell tech isn't cheap.
Still, the South Korean automaker has no plans to abandon the FCEV segment in the US nor anywhere else. It remains a worthwhile investment as the auto industry continues to move away from pure combustion engine towards electrification. Battery electrics might eventually rule, but FCEVs aren't out of the picture yet.
That being said, Top Electric SUV has learned Hyundai is currently planning a significant update for the Nexo that will see its range expand to 500 miles. To compare, the recently revealed Tesla Model S Long Range Plus has an EPA range of 402 miles. The $140,000 Model S Plaid has a claimed range of at least 520 miles but the Nexo costs an awful lot less.
This new Nexo information originally came about when South Korea's president was taking a tour of a Hyundai plant in the country and was asking about the Nexo's range. Hyundai Chairman Euisun Chung was with him and felt it necessary to answer the president's question with this response: "I plan to increase its [Nexo's] range to 497 miles in the future." Impressive.
So why, exactly, did the South Korean president have such a specific interest in the Nexo? It's not like American politicians outside of California are even aware of its existence. The answer is because Hyundai has sold more than 10,000 Nexos since it went on sale there in March 2018. Extending the vehicle's range from 380 miles to about 500 miles makes a big statement about the company's tech capabilities and the country's commitment to zero emissions. The report claims the updated Hyundai Nexo is due to arrive sometime in 2021.
And if you think a 500-mile Nexo is cool, bear in mind the just revealed Toyota Mirai FCEV can reportedly travel up to 528 miles on a single charge.
Co-founder and CEO of HyPoint, the company developing zero-carbon emission hydrogen fuel cell systems for aviation and urban air mobility.
getty
"Fuel cells = fool sells," Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted on June 10. "Staggeringly dumb," he continued. As CNBC noted, Musk has previously "dismissed hydrogen fuel cells as 'mind-bogglingly stupid.'" He has also "called them 'fool cells,' a 'load of rubbish,' and told Tesla shareholders at an annual meeting years ago that 'success is simply not possible.'"
Clearly, Musk is not a fan of hydrogen fuel cells — at least not for use in cars — which makes sense since he built the Tesla empire on lithium-ion batteries.
The debate between lithium-ion and hydrogen has raged for decades. Both can be used as clean, zero-emission alternatives to fossil fuels, but while hydrogen fuel cells have been around much longer (indeed, it is what NASA used to put men on the moon in 1969), it was lithium-ion batteries that ultimately proved much easier to commercialize, particularly for use in passenger cars.
Part of that is because hydrogen fuel cells are more complex; they generate energy by creating and harnessing chemical reactions between hydrogen and oxygen while leaving water vapor as the only emission. And while hydrogen is lightweight, incredibly efficient and the most abundant resource in the universe, it currently takes a lot of energy to harness hydrogen.
"Hydrogen is an energy storage mechanism. It's not a source of energy," Musk said at a 2015 press conference. "Electrolysis is extremely inefficient as an energy process. If you took a solar panel and used the energy from that solar panel to just charge your battery pack directly compared to trying to split water, take the hydrogen, dump the oxygen, compress the hydrogen to an extremely high pressure or liquefy it and then put it in a car and run a fuel cell, it is about half the efficiency. It's terrible."
In some ways, Musk is right. For passenger cars, the economics for hydrogen just aren't there yet, nor is the infrastructure. However, he's missing the ways in which hydrogen fuel cells fit into the bigger picture wherein the economics do make sense — greening the electrical grid and zero-emission aviation, trucking, shipping, urban air mobility, space travel and more.
Governments and leaders around the world are rallying behind hydrogen as a key component to their plans for addressing climate change, not just in the transportation sector but across their entire energy grid. Consider that the European Commission announced its Hydrogen Strategy for a climate-neutral Europe in which it said that hydrogen is "an important part of the solution to meet the 2050 climate neutrality goal of the European Green Deal." Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden announced a $2 trillion clean energy plan that includes renewable hydrogen technology innovation. And Boris Johnson announced 335 million pounds ($446 million) in funding to help drive down greenhouse gas emissions, including the development of hydrogen fuel. Those announcements were made just within the last six months.
Meanwhile, at Tesla's Battery Day in September, Musk acknowledged that his vision for lithium-ion batteries is more complicated than he expected, on a longer technological timetable and not scalable enough to solve the world's most pressing climate problems. Yet surprisingly, in spite of an unprecedented surge in international interest, there was no mention of the clearest solution for zero-emission energy that would meet his own climate goals: hydrogen.
The technology for zero-emission hydrogen fuel cells for use in transportation and other industries isn't a pipe dream — it already exists. Though you might not know it, hydrogen-powered trains, trucks, cars, airplanes and ships are already out in the wild. CNBC noted that "there are dozens of fuel cell buses in use or planned in Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Massachusetts, as well as California" and that "more than 23,000 fuel cell-powered forklifts in operation at warehouses and distribution centers across the U.S. in more than 40 states, including at Amazon and Walmart facilities."
That's just the beginning. The future of urban air mobility (flying cars, air taxis and advanced drones) can only run on hydrogen fuel due to the specific power and energy density that it offers. Carbon-based fuels are simply too heavy, and batteries die too quickly to get small vehicles off the ground. NASA knew that more than 50 years ago, and we're just now commercializing it for more widespread use. Air taxi developers, including Uber Elevate (and hundreds more), are racing to get zero-emission urban air mobility vehicles off the ground by using lithium-ion batteries, hydrogen fuel cells or a combination of both.
In the end, in spite of a relatively slow start, many analysts expect that the hydrogen energy market will take off, driven by both private and public investment around the world. I believe it would behoove Musk — and all of us — if he took another look at hydrogen if for no other reason than to stay true to his mission of combating climate change. Critically, he could help push the hydrogen fuel cell market forward by encouraging responsible development and driving investment.
Clean transportation: Electric cars seem to be the world's primary method of achieving an emissions-free future, but not every car company is necessarily convinced they are the only path forward. Indeed, carmakers Daimler and Volvo are teaming up to prove that hydrogen-based fuel cells are just as viable as a means of powering clean vehicles.
The companies have formed a new joint venture that will focus on large-scale fuel cell production, primarily for heavy-duty trucks. The first milestone they hope to reach is developing a "twin system" fuel cell that can provide 300 kW of "continuous power" to heavy-duty, long-haul trucks.
Aside from powering heavy trucks, Daimler and Volvo hope to use their fuel cells for other purposes, such as "stationary power generation." We also assume the companies will eventually bring their fuel cell technology to mass-market vehicles, but that could still be several years away.
To be clear, neither Daimler nor Volvo are looking to replace EVs here. On the contrary -- the companies believe battery-powered vehicles will play an equally important role in the future. However, they don't want those cars to be the sole focus of the world's ambitions.
"In the future, the world will be powered by a combination of battery-electric and fuel-cell electric vehicles, along with other renewable fuels to some extent," said Volvo CEO Martin Lundstedt in a statement. "The formation of our fuel-cell joint venture is an important step in shaping a world we want to live in."
Daimler and Volvo hope that their experience in carmaking, combined with the former's "several decades" of development work on fuel cells, will enable them to become major players in the fuel cell industry.
This joint venture agreement is expected to finalize during the first half of 2021, pending regulatory approval.
