The WSHA aims to help with H2 heavy duty vehicle deployment in that part of the country.
Hydrogen fuel cell industry members have formally announced the formation of a new alliance. It’s called the Western States Hydrogen Alliance (WSHA). Its goal is to effect rapid deployment of zero-emission H2-powered trucks, locomotives, buses, aircraft, aquatic vessels and off-road equipment.
The WSHA is composed of leading heavy-duty hydrogen fuel cell industry leaders.
The WHSA will focus on rapidly increasing fuel cell industry vehicle development and deployment. This includes heavy duty fuel cell electric technology over several commercial sectors in 13 states in the western US.
“Hydrogen fuel cells will power the future of zero-emission mobility in these heavy-duty, hard to electrify sectors. That fact is indisputable. This new alliance exists to ensure government and industry can work efficiently together to accelerate the coming of this revolution,” said Roxana Bekemohammadi, WSHA executive director.
The WSHA is supported by an external Advisory Board comprised of current appointed and elected officials from Western states. The board will help to direct the policy activities and act as a link between the government and the industry.
Stuttgart, Germany – According to a representative survey conducted in June 2020 by the market research institute Innofact on behalf of Bosch, no powertrain types have lost any of their relevance – whether batteries or fuel cells, gasoline or diesel engines. If the 2,500 survey respondents in Germany, France, Italy, and the U.K. had to decide on a new car tomorrow, one in two would opt for a stand-alone combustion engine for their primary car and around one in three for their second car. However, when asked what would be the most prevalently used powertrain in 2030, some 68 percent of those polled see the electrical powertrain in pole position, ahead of hybrids and combustion engines. Survey participants acknowledged the potential of fuel cell-powered cars, with around one in three seeing the fuel cell as the future of mobility. “Electric mobility is on its way – and that’s good news. This year alone, Bosch is investing 500 million euros in this domain. At the same time, we’re also continuously refining the internal combustion engine – because it’s still needed,” says Dr. Stefan Hartung, member of the Robert Bosch GmbH board of management and chairman of the Mobility Solutions business sector.
Respondents want incentives for all powertrain types
A further question reveals respondents’ open-mindedness toward powertrains of all types: when asked whether they favor incentives for vehicles equipped solely with combustion engines, in addition to the many government subsidies for electric cars and plug-in hybrids, 70 percent of the Europeans polled answered in the affirmative. The number of respondents in favor of government incentives to buy new cars with a conventional powertrain is highest in Italy at 83 percent, and lowest in the United Kingdom at 60 percent. In France, 77 percent are in favor; in Germany, 62 percent. “Incentivizing modern combustion engines can accelerate the vehicle fleet’s renewal, which would also help the environment and the climate,” Hartung says. Just under one-third of Europeans would like to see this subsidy run to at least 9,000 euros. This is the same as the maximum rebate currently offered by the German government for the purchase of an electric car. Two findings are notable: for one, 72 percent of city dwellers in the four surveyed European countries believe the combustion engine merits a subsidy. For the other, the majority (80 percent) of 18-to-29 year-olds also endorse incentives for cars with combustion engines.
Even cars with conventional engines can run in a climate-neutral way. The key to this is renewable synthetic fuels (RSF), which are made from renewable hydrogen and CO₂ captured from the surrounding air. On average, 57 percent of those taking part in the Bosch survey agreed that RSF should benefit from tax breaks. “There’s just no way around renewable synthetic fuels if we want to achieve our climate targets,” Hartung says. “Only with RSF can the more than one billion vehicles already on the road worldwide help contain global warming.”
Can’t live without a car: respondents in Europe are unanimous
In Europe, the status of the car and its importance for mobility is unlikely to change any time soon. Around 60 percent of those surveyed in Germany, France, Italy, and the U.K. are unable to imagine living without a car altogether. And a clear majority of the remaining 40 percent are only prepared to leave their car behind some of the time. The car’s approval rating in rural Europe is 77 percent. Incidentally, these findings are roughly similar among 18-to-29 year-olds, around half of whom also come out clearly in favor of a car. While 61 percent of those surveyed in Germany and 47 percent in the U.K. cited greater flexibility as the most important reason for having a car, 41 percent of French respondents indicated they need it mostly for work. In contrast, 55 percent of surveyed Italians prefer the car to other forms of mobility that they feel are less convenient. “For the foreseeable future, the car will remain the number one means of transport – and has excellent prospects of becoming even more climate-friendly,” Hartung says. Bosch’s objective is for people to be able to stay mobile in an affordable and eco-friendly way.
The future of the powertrain: Bosch champions electromobility and combustion technology
Bosch aims to make transportation as resource-friendly as possible, and is pursuing the vision of CO₂-neutral and virtually emissions-free mobility in several ways. In its approach to future powertrain technology, the supplier of technology and services is keeping an open mind. On the one hand, Bosch aims to become the market leader in electromobility with battery and fuel cell-powered vehicles. Electric vehicles are climate-neutral if the charging power and hydrogen are sourced from renewables. On the other hand, Bosch is continuing to refine combustion engines to contain global warming and protect the environment to the greatest extent possible. If they run on RSF, gasoline and diesel engines can also be climate-neutral on the road. Bosch expects around one-third of all newly registered vehicles worldwide to be purely electric by 2030. Two-thirds of all new vehicles will still be powered by a combustion engine, many of them as hybrids.
“ Electric mobility is on its way – and that’s good news. This year alone, Bosch is investing 500 million euros in this domain. At the same time, we’re also continuously refining the internal combustion engine – because it’s still needed. ”
Dr. Stefan Hartung, member of the Robert Bosch GmbH board of management and chairman of the Mobility Solutions business sector
As the fuel cell community knows, October 8, 2020 isHydrogen and Fuel Cell Day–a day that’s celebrated every year, and that reflects the increasing importance of zero-emission hydrogen fuel cells in the future of transportation.
At Ballard, we are proud of our role in bringing PEM fuel cells to their current level of global prominence. For over 40 years, we have led the world in hydrogen fuel cell technology developments.
this blog, you’ll learn about Ballard’s role in developing the core PEM fuel cell technologies, and our ongoing fuel cell innovations that are increasing performance while dramatically lowering the costs of fuel cell vehicles. You’ll also get a sneak peek into our product roadmap, and what the future holds for anyone planning to develop or purchase zero-emission buses or trucks.
Delivering fuel cell technology for a cleaner planet: From core PEM technologies to complete systems
Our proprietary proton exchange membrane (PEM) technology efficiently creates zero-emission electricity from air and hydrogen, without the use of toxic materials. This core PEM technology still leads the industry—and we continue to refine it. In fact, we have invested more than $1.5 billion in PEM development.
One of our key assets is our people. Together, we are a collective team of specialized fuel cell developers. Nearly 400 scientists and engineers draw upon 4,700 person-years of experience to advance our product designs. Research and development activities are ongoing to develop new technology that is fed into each product iteration.
Our research and development activities have successfully advanced our designs.We have leveraged our work in technically challenging automotive applications, improved component robustness, scaled up our manufacturing and product processes, and developed our supply chain. These activities have contributed to the launch last year of our8th generation fuel cell modulethat leads the industry in power, cost and durability.
We continue to innovate, with a focus on practical commercial advantages
We at Ballard are not content to rest on our successes. We are continually improving our technologies—both the fuel cell engine and the manufacturing processes that create them. To expand our reach to serve a broader range of bus and truck applications, we are continuing to improve those aspects of fuel cell performance that are most critical to commercial vehicles:
Power density—packing more power in lighter, smaller modules reduces material costs. It also means we can fit fuel cell powertrains under more hoods, even in heavy-duty trucks. Our recently released new FCgen®-HPS fuel cell stack leads the industry with a power density of 4.3kW/L.
Cost reduction— lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO) of commercial vehicles, from increased efficiency (which lowers fuel consumption) and better powertrain integration to recycling and refurbishing fuel cells. Lifecycle cost reductions have now made vehicles powered by Ballard technology competitive on a TCO basis for several heavy duty motive applications.(Learn more inFuel Cell Price to Drop 70-80% as Production Volume Scales.)
Durability—With over 30,000 hours of service lifetime powered on the road, Ballard-powered vehicles require only one fuel cell module overhaul during their entire service life, which results in major TCO savings. And, we see a path to even longer life fuel cells.
Looking ahead: What’s next for Ballard?
Continuous improvement to meet the market requirements for commercial vehicles requires an evolution in key fuel cell stack technology attributes. Our technical targets for the next four years are clear, as demonstrated in the chart below.
Ballard, with its vast experience, has the ability to address the trade-offs necessary at the core fuel cell component level to meet market requirements. To put it simply, we know what the technology levers are and we know how to move them to achieve these targets. One such lever is the bipolar plate design.
Proprietary bipolar plate designs deliver sustainability, long life and low cost
Within a PEM fuel cell stack, the bipolar plates are a key component that uniformly distributes fuel and air, removes heat, and prevents leakage of gases and coolant. Our proprietarycarbon bipolar plate designsprovide a strong competitive advantage.
As you can see in the chart above, Ballard is on the path to achieving a 35% reduction in cell pitch, or bipolar plate assembly thickness in our latest fuel cell stack designs. This brings the cell pitch in alignment with our competitors using metal plates. Metal bipolar plates from automakers, however, are far higher in cost.Ballard bipolar platesare:
the most durable on the market, with a service life of 35,000 hours.
the most sustainable, with reusable graphite plates.
the most cost-effective, graphite is the lowest cost material at any manufacturing volume.
So, with these advances in bipolar plate cell pitch we can deliverindustry-leading power densityat a lower cost with much higher durability. This all translates into lower lifecycle costs for the vehicle operator.
Growing our product portfolio
High power modules with scalable power levels
Our product roadmap includes the development of high-powered, scalable modules that serve a broad range of power levels, from 45 to 450kW. Scalable power levels, with shared technologies across product lines, allow us to serve markets ranging from commercial light duty truck and medium-duty vehicles (such as medium-duty trucks and buses) to heavy-duty truck applications.
Shared components simplify manufacturing and lower costs for customers. As we continually improve the performance of our fuel cell stack technologies, the improvements will be applied across all power levels, to improve vehicle performance in every one of our markets.
Partnerships will be key to our success. The heavy duty products (150-450kW) for instance, will be developed through a partnership with MAHLE, a leading international Tier 1 supplier to the commercial vehicle and automotive industry.
Ballard has prime responsibility for system design and the fuel cell stack sub-system, while MAHLE’s scope of responsibility includes balance-of-plant components, thermal management and power electronics for the complete fuel cell system. The combination of technology improvements and product industrialization will help us to achieve our 70% cost reduction target.
Why choose Ballard?
Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day is a perfect opportunity to reflect on Ballard’s pivotal role in zero-emissions transportation. We developed the core PEM technologies and, through continual innovation, we remain the global technology leader in the PEM fuel cell space. More than 3,000 Ballard-powered buses, trams, trucks, and trains are in commercial use today.
Anyone designing a fuel cell vehicle—or selecting the zero-emission trucks or buses for their fleet—should seriously consider Ballard fuel cell products for their industry-leading durability, power density, reliability, sustainability and low total life cycle cost.
Honeywell (NYSE: HON) has acquired assets from privately held Ballard Unmanned Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Southborough, Mass.-based Ballard Power Systems Inc. Ballard Unmanned Systems designs and produces industry-leading, stored-hydrogen proton exchange membrane fuel cell systems that power unmanned aerial systems (UAS), particularly those used for energy inspection, cargo delivery, and other commercial and defense applications where demand for UAS services is growing.
Honeywell is acquiring the key intellectual property, inventory and equipment of Ballard Unmanned Systems. Ballard’s team of fuel-cell experts will also join Honeywell as part of the acquisition.
“Adding Ballard Unmanned Systems to the Honeywell family is another example of our commitment to invest in the growing UAS segment,” said Mike Madsen, president and chief executive officer, Honeywell Aerospace. “We can now begin producing top-quality, scalable power systems for our UAS customers and eventually adapt these systems for other future aerospace, defense and adjacent segment applications.”
Fuel cells function much like traditional batteries but with a key difference: They don’t run out of power or need to be recharged. A fuel cell uses the chemical energy of hydrogen or another fuel to cleanly and efficiently produce electricity. Unmanned aerial systems powered by fuel cells can fly longer distances, are quiet and have zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Ballard Unmanned Systems’ fuel cell power systems can run up to three times longer than batteries and are five times more reliable than small engines. Furthermore, unlike traditional gas engines that have carbon emissions, they utilize hydrogen, a clean source of energy.
With the added capabilities of Ballard Unmanned Systems, Honeywell intends to introduce a family of fuel cell power systems for a variety of UAS vehicles. Honeywell will also collaborate with Ballard Power Systems on broader aviation applications.
Honeywell offers certification expertise as well as a full line of avionics, propulsion and operational systems for unmanned aircraft and UAM vehicles. In June, the company launched a business dedicated to UAS and Urban Air Mobility. Additionally, in September Honeywell opened a new research and development lab to demonstrate the company’s technological capabilities in both hardware and software for the UAS and UAM markets.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and there is no change to Honeywell’s third-quarter 2020 outlook as a result of the acquisition.
