Comment: Tesla’s electric Semi truck is not the Holy Grail, but a hydrogen-powered HGV could be

Tesla has achieved a remarkable milestone in the journey to decarbonising the heavy goods vehicle sector in the US. Its electric Semi truck has driven a 500-mile trip on a single charge at a stated 38,000kg gross vehicle weight and is now being delivered to its first customers.

Some say this vehicle is the ‘Holy Grail’ and ‘the most important vehicle in decades’; achieving this range no other battery electric truck in the US, such as those from Volvo, Freightliner and Nikola have been able to get anywhere close to whilst carrying a full payload.

However, it’s not a job done yet. Battery-electric alone cannot solve this sector’s staggering pollution problem. There are fundamental questions about BEVs for the HGV sector that hydrogen-electric power has the answer for. The quickest way to decarbonise and replace diesel and petrol HGVs will be a synergy of alternative energy solutions, and there is no doubt that hydrogen will have a role play.

BEVs are brilliant, just not for everything

HGVs require a tremendous amount of energy to carry heavy loads and when recharging a BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) HGV, large amounts of energy is needed from the grid.

A fleet of as little as ten battery-powered HGVs drawing electricity from the grid concurrently would have an energy draw equivalent of a small town, which could mean building new sub-stations to service the recharging points.

For logistics managers and fleet operators, downtime when charging is a big problem. The time out of operation to fully charge big HGV batteries just isn’t efficient. For heavy-duty road vehicles, BEVs do not work well, and we need another solution.

That’s why we see repeatedly that countries are committing to hydrogen-electric as the zero-emission propulsion technology of choice for heavy duty vehicles, particularly in the UK and EU where weight restrictions on HGVs prove an even greater challenge for BEV options.

For the decarbonisation of HGVs in the US, the IPCC states a need to peak emissions by 2025 and reduce to 50% of the 1990 baseline by 2030 – therefore a drop of 43% is still required. That means moving as quickly as we can to replace petrol and diesel-powered HGVs.

Hydrogen is a highly effective means to store renewable energy and the technology is rapidly advancing. Instead of requiring substations at charging points, hydrogen (from renewable sources) can be produced when there is surplus renewable energy and stored ready to be pumped into the vehicle’s storage cylinders and then converted into electricity onboard when required. This allows for hydrogen to be produced directly using renewable electricity on wind or solar farms and then distributed to refuelling stations, the same non-disruptive model we currently use for petrol and diesel.

Hydrogen refuelling takes a comparative time to refuel a diesel truck and delivers minimal operational upheaval for our end-users. An HGV is a workhorse and it needs to deliver heavy payloads, long-range and quick refuelling. And these need to be provided with zero-emissions.

The infrastructure debate

For private vehicles, the infrastructure challenge for hydrogen is huge because it would require the conversion of almost every petrol and diesel forecourt to include hydrogen straight away.

For commercial vehicles, however, which often follow set routes and spend the majority of their time on the motorway network, an effective hydrogen refuelling network for the UK could be started with only seven stations strategically located.

As the UK and other countries increase renewable generation capacity there will be times when we are producing more electricity than we need, which can be used to produce low-cost green hydrogen. There will be times when energy demand outstrips generation (and the energy stored in hydrogen can be converted back into electricity and fed into the grid). This grid balancing is vital to maximising the use of renewables and contributes to the economic case for green hydrogen production

As a renewable energy store, green hydrogen provides longer term and larger scale renewable electricity storage than batteries and can deliver renewable energy on demand where it is needed. It can also be exported to Europe in the future for use on the continent.

This isn’t an electric vs hydrogen argument for zero-emission HGVs. Tesla has not closed the book on how to decarbonise the HGV sector with its electric Semi truck. It will take a synergy of all the alternative fuels to take us away from diesel and petrol-powered vehicles, which are the biggest polluters on the roads, as quickly as possible. BEVs will be best for some use cases while hydrogen FCEV clearly wins for others.

Hydrogen is here, it is viable, and it offers an attractive solution to long-range, high-duty cycle fleets.

Jawad Khursheed, CEO, HVS