Scania is currently working with Cummins to develop an initial 20 fuel-cell-electric trucks that will run on green hydrogen for the HyTrucks project. HyTrucks is a consortium of businesses that has pledged to put 1,000 hydrogen trucks and 25 hydrogen refueling stations on European roads by 2025.
The HyTrucks consortium was founded by Air Liquide, DATS 24, the Port of Rotterdam, the Port of Antwerp and the Port of Duisburg in 2021.
Scania has been part of various development projects for hydrogen technologies for a number of years to gain insights into the technology. Although there are batteries in every fuel-cell-electric truck, fully battery-powered trucks remain Scania’s main strategy as they provide a higher uptime and improved costs per km or hour of operations, Scania said.
The fuel-cell-electric trucks will be built on Scania’s battery-electric vehicle platform and leverage Cummins’ PEM fuel cell systems and hydrogen fueling and storage solutions.
Once Cummins has added fuel cells to the trucks, the 20 trucks will be delivered to HyTrucks in 2024.
The HyTrucks project will enable Scania to learn even more about how to install fuel cell systems, the operations and what customers experience.
We have been clear that battery-electric is what we see as the main track for all applications. That said, we are open to what our customers want also with regards to other solutions, like hydrogen. In some operations and geographies where battery-electric vehicles are not optimal, we see that fuel-cell-electric vehicle will be used. We keep a close dialogue with our customers on what is best both for their total operating economy and our planet.
—Fredrik Allard, Head of E-mobility, Scania
Source: https://www.greencarcongress.com/2022/04/20220412-scania.html
