[HN Gopher] Volvo and Daimler bet on hydrogen truck boom this de...
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Volvo and Daimler bet on hydrogen truck boom this decade
Author : samizdis
Score : 122 points
Date : 2021-05-12 10:55 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| unchocked wrote:
| I'm excited about this - we need to invest in different energy
| storage solutions; as promising as batteries are they may not be
| the global optimum for all things as the common woo tells us.
|
| For long haul trucking, battery mass eats substantially into
| payload. And while batteries are getting much cheaper, they
| aren't getting much lighter (cue the "but structural batteries"
| woo here). Hydrogen is an incredibly energy dense fuel and can be
| used in a wide variety of applications, but trucking may be the
| driver that pushes hydrogen economics and infrastructure towards
| being a viable part of our power storage and distribution system.
|
| Once something drives hydrogen at scale, it becomes possible to
| think about long term (seasonal) energy storage, electrification
| of long-haul flight, and replacement of fossil fuel for
| industrial process heat - all vital for driving emissions to
| zero.
| jppope wrote:
| I still haven't figured out why solutions like MagLev trains
| aren't used for this problem...
| hollerith wrote:
| Hydrogen molecules are so inconvenient to store. It would be
| great if the hydrogen atoms were stored in the form of, e.g.,
| octane, then the carbon atoms (from the octane) were recovered
| somehow so they don't accumulate in the atmosphere.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| Just do more freight trains already...
| kstenerud wrote:
| > Of the need to build the infrastructure at the same time as the
| trucks, Lundstedt said: "It can be seen as a chicken and egg. But
| we have said we will go for it. We will deliver the chicken.
| Someone else can deliver the egg."
|
| Is it just me or does this sound incredibly naive?
| birktj wrote:
| Is syngas/synfuel [1] a viable route? Obviously it would be less
| efficient to produce than pure hydrogen (anyone know how much
| energy would be lost in the hydrogen conversion step?) and
| probably cannot compete with natural hydrocarbons with current
| tech, electricity prices and carbon taxes. However compared to
| pure hydrogen it should have a couple of advantages: compact
| (same energy by volume as current fuels) and can take advantage
| of current infrastructure. If done right it could probably power
| both current ICE vehicles as well as future fuel-cell vehicles.
| Can anyone comment on any major downsides except it not really
| being economically viable with current tech.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel
| darksaints wrote:
| Yes it is certainly viable. Far too many people think
| efficiency is going to be the deciding factor, but in reality
| we already have tons of energy that goes to waste, and it is
| only going to get larger with intermittent renewables. Over
| provisioning of renewables seems to be the current best option
| to deal with baseload demands from intermittent renewables,
| which will mean that the cost of surplus non-peak energy is
| going to trend toward $0/kWh. In the end, who cares if it takes
| 150kWh to make 50kWh of fuel if that 50kWh of fuel only costs
| $1? I'm 100% sure most trucking companies won't give a shit.
|
| This all would mean that efficiency doesn't really matter
| anymore, but rather the practical characteristics of the fuel.
| Liquid fuels, and many easily compressed fuels, are amazingly
| practical. Natural gas is already a viable fuel for many
| trucking applications, and synthesized methane is incredibly
| easy. But synthetic diesel and butane are also within the realm
| of possibilities.
| shafyy wrote:
| I thought by now it's clear to everyone that electric motors are
| the way to go? Is this some kind of lobby / legacy crap?
| pWFk41mFfie1NOd wrote:
| Hydrogen fuel cells don't make sense for consumer cars but
| there are still areas where the higher energy density and
| quicker refueling times make hydrogen a viable option. Check
| out this video which does talk about the issues with hydrogen
| but shows the areas such as heavy duty trucking, ships, etc.
| where hydrogen can work:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoXJYPfag1I
| amalcon wrote:
| The charging time issue is basically solved for cars, but not
| nearly solved for long haul trucks (which both require more
| energy and expect a lower idle:active time ratio). It seems
| worth exploring alternate fuel sources for that case.
| whalesalad wrote:
| It's definitely not solved. There are a half dozen different
| plug formats, voltage levels, etc...
|
| If you want fast charging for instance you need a special
| vehicle with a high voltage system. Those are not super
| common right now, although it's getting better.
|
| Really this is the biggest _unsolved_ part of EV's.
| gambiting wrote:
| There are? Here in UK you have Type 2(can be safely ignored
| for this, pretty much only used for at-home charging up to
| 7kW single phase or 21kW triple phase), Chademo(only used
| by the leafs and other Nissan cars) and CCS. CCS being the
| most common, there are motorway charging stations with
| super modern 250kW chargers and they only have CCS, so no
| issue with compatibility at all. Basically all new cars
| have CCS connectors, it's _the_ standard.
|
| And yes, CCS supports either 400 or 800V charging, but
| that's seamlessly negotiated by the car once connected, I
| don't see that as a problem here.
| SigmundA wrote:
| A large truck will not be able to use a CCS charger even
| at 800v for under an hour. The Tesla semi look to be
| using a special connector with 4 parallel DC connections
| while a CCS2 is only a single pair.
|
| Your going to need a Megawatt for reasonable charge
| times, CCS tops out a 400kw at 1000v and 400amps with
| liquid cooled cables and connectors.
|
| BTW a diesel truck pump puts out about the equivalent of
| 6 megawatts after efficiencies are normalized.
| gambiting wrote:
| Like I said in another comment - commercial drivers have
| to stop for 8 hours every 8 hours of work by law
| anyway(in UK/EU), so there's plenty of time for charging.
| Even at the relatively common 150kW charging speed you're
| charging 1.2MWh(!!!) Capacity every 8 hours. I _really_
| don 't think trucks will come with megawatt-hour capacity
| batteries, but if they do then 8 hours are long enough to
| charge such a battery with infrastructure that exists
| today.
| SigmundA wrote:
| Tesla is claiming "under 2kwh/mile" for their semi. At
| 2kwh/mile your looking at a megawatt for 500 miles range
| which is close to an 8 hour drive.
|
| There will need to be stall where a semi can park for 8
| hours using a charger.
|
| Local deliver makes sense also city buses obviously and
| thats already happening. Long haul will need a lot more
| charging infrastructure to make sense.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| The biggest unsolved part of EV IMO is the fact that mining
| lithium destroys the environment, and IIRC uses a fair bit
| of child labor. Looking at it from that perspective it's
| not yet a green technology.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Lithium mining is pretty well industrialized I think.
|
| Cobalt mining has problems with child labor.
| danielscrubs wrote:
| How so? My friend told me just last week that all the
| charging stations where full because even if 20-30 min might
| not seem like a long time, on a busy station the queues
| becomes intense. Meetings are missed if you don't plan ahead.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| The needs of trucks are very different than the needs of
| commercial vehicles, so that 20-30 min charging time
| becomes several hours if not more. They might just do
| battery swapping at that point.
| gambiting wrote:
| The bigger the battery the faster you can charge it. And
| commercial drivers have to stop for an 8 hour rest every
| 8 hours of work by law anyway(at least here in UK/EU).
| Even using the already existing infrastructure and
| charging at the relatively common 150kW, you're regaining
| 1.2MWh(!!!!!!) capacity in those 8 hours. That's _a lot_
| of energy, about 12 Tesla Model X batteries worth.
| bluGill wrote:
| In the US team drivers are common: two drivers in one
| truck, one drives while the other sleeps, they take turns
| who is driving. They still need to stop for fuel/supplies
| and exercise, but they can cover a lot of ground in a day
| because they never stop for very long (they are very
| careful to track all restroom breaks so that they can
| prove they never exceed the legal limits of how long they
| can drive before a rest)
| darksaints wrote:
| A large percentage of long haul trucks have team drivers,
| which legally can and do run 24/7. Even for those that
| don't, you're talking about building charging
| infrastructure for a huge quantity of trucks most of
| which will be wanting to charge at the same time. It's
| hard enough to get commercial 240v connections in the US,
| how hard do you think it would be for truck stops to get
| 10MW connections?
| gambiting wrote:
| I really don't know. Don't have the answer for US. All I
| can say is that we ship goods cross Europe all the
| time(UK-Poland, trip that takes 3-4 days one way) and
| it's always done by a single driver, we've used many
| different shipping companies and we've never had a driver
| team - I guess that the economics of transport don't work
| for dual drivers in EU for whatever reason, but again, I
| really don't have the answer as to why.
|
| "It's hard enough to get commercial 240v connections in
| the US"
|
| Again, not an expert on US infrastructure, but any
| charging site will be getting a 10kV connection which
| will be then stepped down to whatever you need - it has
| to be converted to DC anyway so you need those
| transformers anyway. As to the feasibility of providing
| 10MW to a charging stop - really don't know, someone else
| has to answer this.
| darksaints wrote:
| Yeah, the complexity and cost is pretty high at that sort
| of of localized power density. Most truck stops max out
| on nighttime parking (about 100 spaces), and assuming all
| of them charging at the time, a moderately sized truck
| stop would require about 20MW peak power...even more if
| they plan on having megachargers. The biggest problem is
| line capacity...you won't be able to piggyback on local
| infrastructure. You'll have to run dedicated lines from
| tens, if not hundreds of miles away from the nearest
| distribution station. Remember, most truck stops are far
| away from population centers, and thus electrical
| infrastructure, as a matter of practicality. They need
| too much land.
|
| I'm not betting on hydrogen specifically because 1) it's
| too complex, and 2) while the volumetric density is
| within the realm of feasibility, it's still not great.
| But I _am_ betting on fuel cells. Solid Oxide Fuel Cells
| in particular. They 're already extremely efficient, and
| also produce high grade (i.e. easily recapturable and
| convertible) heat. And they can use hydrogen, but they
| can also use methane, ammonia, butane, propane, diesel,
| gasoline, or any other form of fuel (I've run one off of
| wood chips!). And that flexibility has a lot of power,
| especially with the future of abundant and cheap non-peak
| power costs and rapidly developing synthetic fuel
| technologies.
| gambiting wrote:
| Yeah, these are all very good points. I suspect companies
| which will make use of this first are companies which can
| control charging on both ends. Say UPS/FedEx/DHL buying a
| fleet because they can put strong charging points in
| their larger warehouses. Those trucks rarely drive more
| than 8 hours away anyway, parcels go from one
| distribution centre to the next, so that's excellent time
| to charge while the truck is being offloaded and loaded
| again. And they will have megawat-range connection to the
| grid for their warehouses already.
| kackerd wrote:
| That sounds like a good news story for EVs. So many people
| bought them that the installation of charging stations is
| lagging behind. There is no strong constraint on building
| new charging stations though. Soon they will catch up, and
| no one will have to wait more than 20-30 minutes.
| ultrastable wrote:
| I think the perceived advantage is range? I don't really know
| anything about fuel cells but I'd be interested to know how
| they compare to battery power in terms of the environmental
| consequences of material extraction/manufacturing, eg lithium
| jacquesm wrote:
| Hydrogen powered vehicles can use electric motors.
|
| See:
|
| https://www.daf.com/en/about-daf/sustainability/alternative-...
| shafyy wrote:
| True. I need to be more specific: Electric motors powered by
| chemical batteries.
| zibzab wrote:
| Hydrogen power cells have a number of advantages. For one
| they are more efficient while being much more environmental
| friendly than batteries (which to be perfectly honest is
| basically an environmental disaster on wheels).
|
| Also, much faster to charge which is important in
| commercial traffic.
| lstodd wrote:
| That's part hype, part subsidy-hunting.
|
| The whole piece can be condensed to that single sentence:
|
| > Both men urged governments not just to ensure that the
| necessary fuel infrastructure would be in place for hydrogen
| but also to provide sufficient incentives for transport
| companies to shift to greener trucks.
|
| That is all there is.
| [deleted]
| jhoechtl wrote:
| It's by no means clear, that's the point. From battery to motor
| is fine for your ride within city limits but by no way a solved
| problem for long hauls.
|
| Energy density, charging time and the problem, that even an
| exhausted battery has the same weight as a fresh one, are the
| issues yet to be solved.
| danuker wrote:
| Electric battery storage density is nowhere near diesel or
| petrol.
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Energy-densities-of-vari...
| SigmundA wrote:
| They seemed to be referencing fuel cells not combustion
| engines.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Diesel locomotives are still powered by electricity. The Diesel
| engine runs a generator which provides power to the traction
| motors on the rail. The same concept can be applied here to
| Hydrogen.
| intrasight wrote:
| I'd say "powered by diesel but moved by electric motors"
|
| Trains have different requirements in terms of how power is
| applied to the wheels, and the loss of efficiency is
| acceptable in this context.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| How does hydrogen store over time? For example regular gasoline
| can be stored only for about six months.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| This headline just made me think of how hydrogen likes to go
| boom.
| OscarTheGrinch wrote:
| Yeah, the big hydrogen guys should really not let hydrogen and
| boom appear in the same headline.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| I'd like to remind people that heavy trucks that make fairly
| regular and predictable journeys between fixed points with fairly
| rigid timing constraints lend themselves very well to all sorts
| of solutions that wouldn't work for your work/soccer/whole foods
| type trips.
|
| I wouldn't bet my money on hydrogen being the way of the future
| but I would bet my money on internet comments being wrong when it
| comes to predicting the future of heavy industry on a timeline
| longer than a couple quarters.
|
| Batteries are getting better and look promising but all new tech
| does that until it hits a wall (then it generally progresses
| slowly until some development in a different field enables
| further development in the stalled field). What are the odds
| batteries hit a wall before they're viable in heavy trucks? I
| dunno but certainly not zero.
| m463 wrote:
| I was thinking why not CNG - it's readily available and will
| probably be the root source of hydrogen in these schemes...
|
| But then - it's not carbon neutral.
| Black101 wrote:
| > I wouldn't bet my money on hydrogen being the way of the
| future but I would bet my money on internet comments being
| wrong
|
| Exactly what I was thinking when I was reading your comment...
| EricE wrote:
| Batteries already hit the wall with trucks; otherwise the
| industry would be all over them. It's highly more likely that
| hydrogen infrastructure could be built out faster than battery
| technology could improve for batteries to be effective for
| trucking.
|
| Hydrogen's biggest benefit is you can quickly tank your vehicle
| up on energy - as fast as with liquid fuel. Also hydrogen fuel
| cells haven even less maintenance than battery powered EVs, and
| while fuel cells do require some maintenance they don't require
| wholesale replacement like battery packs do. Batteries degrade
| even faster when under heavy use - and freight puts big demands
| on a drivetrain.
|
| And for those proposing battery swapping - where you going to
| get the batteries from? We can barely keep up with EV car
| demand and EVs are far from ubiquitous. These are serious
| issues: batteries just don't scale - on multiple fronts.
| slver wrote:
| There are solutions we haven't tried that will quickly extend
| the range of an electric truck, like: swap the batteries, don't
| change them.
| kackerd wrote:
| The other difference between trucks and cars is that
| power/weight isn't really important for the latter, and hugely
| important for the former. If there's an improvement that allows
| you to carry 5% more weight in your car, that doesn't matter
| much. Most of the engine's energy is being used transporting
| the engine around, and the weight of passengers and luggage is
| not an operative constraint. For trucks it matters a lot,
| because they just became 5% more efficient.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The trailer tail aerodynamic devices are supposed to save 5%
| on fuel. They remain rare and 99% of those are left
| undeployed. The trucking companies don't seem to care much
| about easy cost savings.
| bombcar wrote:
| A significant percentage of semis you see are nowhere near
| fully loaded.
|
| Especially for local deliveries- the truck is often half-
| empty.
| zeristor wrote:
| Don't you mean half-full?
| anshorei wrote:
| When you're doing deliveries half-empty is the optimistic
| take.
| tosser456123 wrote:
| Don't you mean twice as big as it needs to be?
| Dennip wrote:
| From looking at it on Google images, could it be that this
| device has other downsides? Making doors more awkward to
| open, increasing turning radius etc?
| imglorp wrote:
| That's odd. Airlines would kill to install a cheap device
| on their fleet and save 5% on fuel. If diesel is $3/gal and
| the semi holds 200gal, that's about $30 savings per fillup
| and would pay for itself quickly.
| nostromo wrote:
| Crazy idea: don't store hydrogen as a liquid but as a gas.
| Hydrogen is lighter than air, so you've just reduced the fuel
| requirements by making the semi lighter than it otherwise
| would be.
|
| Or just go to the logical conclusion: make semis blimps that
| use hydrogen to both float and as a fuel source.
| xxpor wrote:
| ... you're aware a variation of this was tried a century
| ago, yes?
| nostromo wrote:
| Yes, but tech has improved a tad since then.
|
| In every flight you take, the wings are filled with
| highly combustable materials, and yet we find ways to
| keep them from exploding. The same is true for all those
| batteries in electric cars, and of course gasoline.
| xxpor wrote:
| Jet A is really not that combustible; it's very close to
| diesel/kerosene. If you take a lit match and drop it in a
| bucket of Jet A, nothing would happen, it'd just burn
| out. It's way safer than gasoline. It's combustible only
| when turned into a fine mist.
|
| On the other hand, H2 would have exploded just from the
| spark of lighting the match.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| In my experience the combustibility of det fuel and
| similar petroleum products depends primarily on whether
| the context of the conversation is praising modern safety
| engineering or heckling someone for using diesel as a
| cleaning solvent.
| jsight wrote:
| You'd likely get by with dropping the match into gasoline
| most of the time too. Its not definite that there will be
| vapor from it in the right mix for it to catch fire
| before hitting the surface.
|
| Gasoline also isn't quite as combustible as people
| imagine.
| nostromo wrote:
| It's worth noting that hydrogen fires burn bright and
| quickly, but tend to not be very dangerous to people.
|
| Gasoline and batteries are heavy and tend to stick to
| surfaces (including people) when they burn, almost like
| napalm. Hydrogen rushes upwards, away from people and
| surfaces, as it burns, and is generally quickly
| exhausted.
| linuxftw wrote:
| I strongly disagree with this statement.
| jsight wrote:
| I'm not sure what there is to disagree with. Fire around
| gasoline is dangerous for a number of reasons, but liquid
| gasoline pooled just isn't as volatile as people imagine.
|
| The vapors are different. See both sides of this coin
| here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsZOE1nvlhI
|
| Also, this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vln5-HZpgcA
|
| Don't try this at home. Vapors can change things
| dramatically and horribly. The videos lightly demonstrate
| this too, but it can be worse.
| linuxftw wrote:
| Liquid gasoline without the present of vapor is pretty
| much nonexistent. Dropping a match into some is going to
| be a problem.
| istjohn wrote:
| You haven't made them lighter, you've made them more
| bouyant. A ton of feathers weighs the same as a ton of
| rocks, but a ton of rocks is far more aerodynamic.
| JoblessWonder wrote:
| I mean, this is sort of off-topic.... but I just love
| this video:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fC2oke5MFg
| nostromo wrote:
| Sure, but the point is a more buoyant semi would lose
| less energy to friction between the tires and the road.
| trulyme wrote:
| You're missing the point. Liquid hidrogen takes much less
| space, that's all. It is neither lighter nor heavier than
| the same amount of hidrogen gas.
|
| And for buoyancy to matter, the trucks would need to be
| huge (zepelin style).
| [deleted]
| HPsquared wrote:
| That works until there's a light breeze.
| agumonkey wrote:
| unless you store them in a black wing shaped bag and let
| the sun lift the fuel for you
| NwtnsMthd wrote:
| It becomes a bit of a transport density problem. A semi
| does not take up much more room than the cargo it's
| transporting (if fully packed) but a blimp needs to be
| significantly larger to carry the same amount. They're big,
| slow, and require a large amount of space to land on the
| ground. It just seems like more issues to overcome than
| hydrogen fuel cell trucks.
| bloopernova wrote:
| Could trains tow blimps?
| trhway wrote:
| >Batteries are getting better and look promising but all new
| tech does that until it hits a wall
|
| between metal-air batteries and hydrogen, i think metal-air is
| just better density/utility-wise and have higher chances
| technology-wise. And infrastructure-wise it would be just a
| continuation of the ongoing electrification transformation
| whereis hydrogen means totally new buildout for not much gain
| if any.
| darksaints wrote:
| The theoretical limit of energy density for lithium batteries
| is _already too low to be economically viable for most trucking
| applications_. I also don 't know that hydrogen is the answer,
| but it almost assuredly is not going to be batteries for
| anything that isn't for local deliveries only.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _theoretical limit of energy density for lithium batteries
| is already too low to be economically viable for most
| trucking applications_
|
| Curious to see a source for this.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| That's not true. 500 mile range semi trucks are feasible with
| careful engineering. That's long enough where drivers have to
| stop for regulator rest anyway. See:
| https://selenianboondocks.com/2017/11/tesla-semi-part-1/
|
| More for lithium sulfur.
| darksaints wrote:
| What are the chances of a Tesla megacharger exactly at the
| closest exit when you hit your 8 hour mark, and also not
| being used by any other trucks? Real life usage requires
| buffers.
| xxpor wrote:
| Economic viability can be massaged through subsidies or
| taxes, if the break even point isn't too far away from the
| current point.
| EricE wrote:
| >Economic viability can be massaged through subsidies or
| taxes
|
| Wow - we have subsidies than can alter the laws of physics?
| Neat! Why didn't we deploy that before now!
| xxpor wrote:
| No, but just think about an extreme case. What if there
| was a tax on any liquid hydrocarbon based fuel of
| $1000/gal starting 1/1/2023? What would the reaction be?
| Obviously truckers would want to buy something so they
| didn't have to drive a diesel truck any more. If battery
| powered trucks were more expensive per lb*mi than the
| diesel at the old price, the switch would cause general
| prices for goods to go up, granted, but the case for non-
| diesel trucks would be there because it wouldn't go up
| enough to cause the demand for trucks to collapse.
| bluGill wrote:
| The reaction would be the political party that passed
| that tax would lose overwhelmingly by a landslide in the
| election.
|
| If you want to do some form of tax that is large enough
| to make a difference you first need to make the
| alternative to paying that tax viable enough that people
| will switch. Hydrocarbons are massively more energy dense
| than any other practical fuel. (nuclear is of course more
| energy dense, but not currently practical for trucks) If
| you want to get rid of them, then you need an alternative
| that works well enough for people to actually switch.
| There are a number of them, but batteries are not one,
| and never will be.
| shafyy wrote:
| Elon: Hold my beer!
| skystarman wrote:
| I worked in the commercial trucking EV space for a little bit
| and I don't know anyone in the commercial trucking industry
| that genuinely thinks batteries will be the solution for long-
| haul, class 7 & 8 trucks. At least not in the next decade or
| so, if ever. Elon and Tesla will tell you otherwise but there's
| a reason their Semi has been delayed for 3 years now...
|
| Short haul, drayage, etc. is definitely workable with current
| tech.
|
| They batteries you'd need for 6-700 mile daily drives would
| mean you're carrying a tiny fraction of what a ICE truck could
| haul due to weight constraints. We are making strides in this
| technology but are still nowhere close.
|
| Almost everyone I've spoken to believes hydrogen is far more
| feasible, but it still has its own issues most importantly the
| massive infrastructure investment to support it.
| panabee wrote:
| long-haul trucks are capped at 80,000 pounds by regulation.
| do you happen to know what percentage of deliveries run at
| 100% weight or close to full capacity?
|
| with further advancements, battery optimists expect the
| weight penalty compared to hydrogen at around 6,000 - 10,000
| pounds.
|
| by your estimate, how much of this weight penalty will
| translate into actual lost cargo -- and thus lost sales?
| rsj_hn wrote:
| > with further advancements, battery optimists expect the
| weight penalty compared to hydrogen at around 6,000 -
| 10,000 pounds.
|
| The penalty is _unbounded_ because one has a higher energy
| /weight _ratio_ than the other.
|
| So with hydrogen at ~ 130 MJ/kg and batteries at ~1 MJ/kg,
| if you need a mega Joule then the weight difference is
| ~130Kg. If you need 100 MJ then the weight difference is
| 13000 kg, etc.
|
| So each energy will have a different penalty. Let's look at
| trucks.
|
| Today a semi will carry about 1000L of fuel (~260 gallons),
| which is ~40,000MJ. That would require ~300Kg of hydrogen
| (plus supporting weight for the container, etc) or ~40,000
| kg of batteries (plus supporting weight for coolant,
| container, etc).
|
| Thus what is economical for cars may not be economical for
| semis. There is not a single weight difference between cars
| and trucks.
|
| Whereas a big jet can use 20,000 Liters of fuel which would
| require 800,000kg of battery + weight of supporting
| infrastructure or ~6100 kg of hydrogen.
|
| So it makes sense that the two biggest truck manufacturers
| would be very interested in hydrogen.
| kube-system wrote:
| There are other costs to weight other than cargo capacity,
| both for freight companies and society as a whole. More
| frequent maintenance, slower speeds, inaccessible and/or
| altered routes, more accidents, more wear on
| infrastructure.
| bluGill wrote:
| The only way to make electric long haul trucking work out is
| overhead wires. Trolley buses in some cites do this, (the
| latest have enough batteries to run for ~5 miles without a
| wire which is useful for a lot of applications)
|
| Or better yet the freight railroads need to figure out how to
| serve their customers better. They are already more efficient
| than existing trucks, and overhead wire locomotives are
| already on the market. The US has the best freight rail in
| the world - and they still lose a lot of potential customers
| because their operations are so customer unfriendly.
| ephbit wrote:
| Overhead wires work fine with the railway network but
| somehow I think that having all these independently
| operated trucks drawing power on one pair of wires might be
| a challenging problem.
|
| A single train draws a lot of power (several MWs) but it's
| _one_ entity and as such can easily be managed in respect
| to having the power system functioning. But having tens,
| maybe hundreds of vehicles draw power on the same wires
| would need to be coordinated somehow.
| 7952 wrote:
| An inductive system under the road surface would seem
| easier to install and would work better with different
| vehicle sizes. Suspending lines across a multi lane highway
| would need a lot of structures.
| EricE wrote:
| There is no way you could pass enough current via
| induction without setting things on fire or microwaving
| the occupant of the cab (or both). If it was viable,
| people would be pursuing it already.
| bluGill wrote:
| Even if it was safe, the efficiency is much lower, and it
| is a lot more expensive. Wires overhead are much cheaper
| than than wires in pavement. It is more expensive to put
| the wires in pavement, and you need a lot more to get the
| induction to happen.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Wire trucks are tested in Germany and Sweden that I know
| off. I too think that it might actually be really viable to
| avoid tons of batteries - unless there is some technical
| issues I am unawere off.
| ABS wrote:
| I cannot comment on efficiency and the like but today in
| Milan, Italy the first few new on-the-road public buses
| "fast" (200 kW) charging stations went into operation:
|
| In Italian but with images and videos:
| https://medium.com/lineadiretta/installati-i-primi-
| charger-h...
| bjourne wrote:
| This is the solution Volvo has proposed except with guard
| rails instead of overhead wires because they are incredibly
| brittle. Almost anything can tear it down in inclement
| weather. At first glance it seems impractical because there
| are so many roads, but 95% of the time freight trucks say
| on the main highways. So you only need to electrify those.
|
| As an added bonus, it makes self-driving trucks much much
| easier to implement.
|
| The hardest part is probably standardization. You'd need
| buy-in from the US, the EU and probably most of South-east
| Asia for it to be practical.
| seryoiupfurds wrote:
| Eh, electric trains still use incompatible standards for
| different regions of the same country due to historical
| inertia. In comparison selling trucks with a different
| electrical pickup for each continent wouldn't be a big
| deal.
| shafyy wrote:
| I could reframe your statement like so:
|
| ~~ = strikethrough, _italic_ = my inserts
|
| "I worked in the commercial ~~trucking~~ EV space for a
| little bit and I don't know anyone in the commercial
| ~trucking~ industry that genuinely thinks batteries will be
| the solution for ~~long-haul, class 7 & 8 trucks~~
| _practical, affordable, long-range cars_. At least not in the
| next decade or so, if ever. Elon and Tesla will tell you
| otherwise but there 's a reason their ~~Semi~~ _Model 3_ has
| been delayed for 3 years now...
|
| More often than not, innovation comes from industry
| outsiders. You can think whatever you want of Musk, but I
| think he has more than proven that he eventually gets the
| shit done he has talked about.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| > practical, affordable, long-range cars
|
| We don't have this in EV yet, or is it your perception that
| we do?
| davewritescode wrote:
| We do not. Most cheaper EVs are ~200 miles of EPA
| estimated range which here in the US limits the use of
| the vehicle significantly. You also have to account for
| the fact that EPA estimates tend to be fairly optimistic
| for the way some people drive.
|
| A Model3 AWD (non LR) will struggle to hit 200 miles of
| range at 75+ MPH with the heat running and temperatures
| near freezing. For anyone in New England cold weather and
| prevailing highway speeds of 75+ are fairly standard.
| justapassenger wrote:
| > practical, affordable, long-range cars
|
| I've been driving only EVs or PHEVs with big batteries for
| last 5 years. EVs are practical for my specific use cases.
| But it's a lie to say that we have EVs that practical,
| affordable, and long-range.
|
| They're practical for people with garages. Affordable, only
| if you don't cross shop them same price point for hybrids,
| and don't compare what you get for the money. And none of
| them is long-range - ok range, at best. And not a single
| car comes close to being both affordable and long-range.
| davewritescode wrote:
| Emphasis on the "don't compare what you get for the
| money". The Tesla Model3 is nice, but once you get close
| to $50k here in the US you're up against much much nicer
| vehicles to spend a few hours in.
|
| I bought a car 2 years back and test drove the Model3 as
| one of the contenders. The two things that led me to skip
| an electric car this go around was the poor dealership
| support that I had a couple of owners warn me about and
| the fact that the Model3 interior is pretty awful
| compared to what you get in most entry level Japanese and
| German 'luxury' cars. I'm a car guy, I can't justify
| spending that kind of money on something I don't
| absolutely love.
|
| I'm excited to revisit the decision a couple of years
| down the line.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| > _Short haul, drayage, etc. is definitely workable with
| current tech._
|
| What's a rough estimate of the size of "short haul" vs "long
| haul" trucking segments?
| mitjam wrote:
| I think a hybrid concept of electric trains for the long haul
| and electric trucks for the last miles might be promising.
| Possibly with autonomous freight hand over.
| Retric wrote:
| I think the efficient option is electrified roads you can
| drive over at 70+MPH. It's simply the evolution of
| trolleys, but the chicken and egg problem is huge. ~15-50kw
| per car/semi takes a lot of power infrastructure. Still in
| road charging at say 20-30c/kWh could be extremely
| profitable and still much cheaper than gas.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_road
|
| A huge upside is in road charging is nearly perfect for
| both load shedding and self driving cars.
| bluGill wrote:
| I'm still going with batteries for the short haul trips,
| with trains for longer. There are too many roads to cost
| effectively electrify them all, that means there will
| always be short trips (my driveway at least) that need
| battereis. While we can electrify freeways rail is
| cheaper by far.
| Retric wrote:
| The point is electric cars with a 200 mile range and a
| significant electric road network simply makes internal
| combustion engines obsolete in a way that even a 500 mile
| EV doesn't. Semi's are a bonus at that point.
|
| Anyway, electric rail is just down to the standard rail
| vs road brake down we already have. Roads are point to
| point without extra loading or unloading steps. Even with
| expensive gas and cheap electrified rail you still see a
| lot of long distance trucking. Long term with either
| electric highways or self driving trucks it's going to
| favor roads even more let alone both.
| unchocked wrote:
| It's amusing to watch folks bend over backwards to propose
| workarounds for the hard thing that solves the problem:
| developing a sustainable, energy dense fuel.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Biofuels are one way. Basically get algae to absorb CO2 and
| produce fuel.
| clomond wrote:
| We already have it, it's called electrically synthesized
| methane/propane.
|
| If the carbon is captured from the atmosphere and merged
| with water via renewable sources, that is it. We don't do
| it and it isn't proposed because the efficiency losses are
| crazy, and we aren't in a world with over-abundant
| renewable energy widely available for pennies on the dollar
| (yet)
| jabl wrote:
| Yeah, with the addition that if you're going to go the
| synthetic hydrocarbon route you might as well go all the
| way to a fuel which is a liquid at normal operating
| temperatures to simplify logistics (and which isn't a
| massive GHG when it accidentally leaks like methane).
| ephbit wrote:
| Advantage of shorter carbohydrates (like propane) is that
| they're made up of less carbon relative to the hydrogen
| (compared to longer chains), so for the same amount of
| energy stored, you need to capture less CO2 from the
| atmosphere or from wherever you're taking it.
|
| Propane can relatively easily be compressed to be
| liquefied at room temperature. Takes just a few bars of
| pressure.
| SigmundA wrote:
| Lithium batteries have tripled in energy density since 2010
| while the price has dropped about 90% I believe.
|
| I was pretty skeptical when Tesla announced the Semi but the
| trend lines are there if not on Elons over promise timeline.
|
| I agree it will be some time before they are viable for long
| haul, but a lot due to charging infrastructure.
|
| Weight is the big question mark, I am anxious to see the
| Tesla semi battery weight and final capacity to see how
| viable it is. My guess is around 10,000lbs and a megawatt-
| hour capacity for 500 mile range. I imagine them trying to do
| a structural battery to try and make up for its weight. The
| equivalent diesel drivetrain is under 5000lbs including
| engine and can have up to 2000 miles range.
| whatever1 wrote:
| "Lithium batteries have tripled in energy density since
| 2010"
|
| No they have not. My 2021 iPhone does not have triple the
| energy density of the 2010 iPhone.
|
| The battery cells have improved but that is a packaging
| improvement, not battery improvement. Other companies are
| doing pouches for example. And then there is the question
| of cooling, do you include it in the weight calculations?
|
| From what we know a Tesla model S in 2020 does not have
| triple the capacity of the model s of 2012. We only saw an
| increase from 85kwh to 100kwh in 2020. That is 20% increase
| not 300%.
| bronson wrote:
| Your iPhone example is problematic because Apple has so
| many competing requirements, but ok... Battery capacity
| from the iPhone 3gs to the 12 increased by over 2X. Sure,
| some of it is packaging (the 12 is 15% heavier) but the
| biggest factor is better chemistry.
|
| Would you have been OK with GP saying 2X instead of 3X?
| whatever1 wrote:
| No, because newer iPhones are larger and have physically
| larger and heavier batteries that help them store more
| energy. iPhone 11 has a density of 250 wh/kg and the
| iPhone 4 was around 200 wh/kg.
|
| That is again not even close to 300% increase
|
| I am looking at apples documentation. Not sure where you
| folks are coming up with your imaginary numbers.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20191007202842/https://www.ap
| ple....
| bronson wrote:
| You're comparing less than ten years. Here's what I see,
| 2009-2019:
|
| iPhone 3g: 4.5 Wh / 0.0335 kg = 134 Wh/kg
|
| iPhone 11: 11.91 Wh / 0.047 kg = 253 Wh/kg
|
| For a 1.9X improvement.
|
| Agreed, consumers aren't seeing 3X. But they should be
| seeing better than 20%.
| whatever1 wrote:
| Not sure where you found the data for 3g and whether they
| follow the same methodology as apple (the report shows up
| to iphone 4 which was introduced in 2010), but even if I
| assume that they are correct, what you are proposing is
| even more far-fetched.
|
| That in 2010 something dramatic happened in the battery
| technology world and they doubled in density overnight.
| Hint: No they did not.
| SigmundA wrote:
| https://cleantechnica.com/2020/02/19/bloombergnef-
| lithium-io...
| brightball wrote:
| I'd be curious to get your take on what these guys are doing?
|
| Apparently they have a cost effective way to upgrade existing
| diesel trucks with battery + LNG to extend the range.
|
| https://www.hyliion.com/
| nonameiguess wrote:
| California tried to do it for everyone. Arnold famously had an
| all hydrogen fleet of personal Hummers back in 2004. The state
| had plans for a "hydrogen superhighway." I think they're up to
| about 8,000 vehicles on the road now nearly 20 years later, but
| that is nearly 100% of hydrogen vehicles in the entire US.
|
| I think the actual state-owned fleets mostly switched to LNG by
| now. Who knows if it'll maybe be feasible soon for long haul
| trucking? Hydrogen cells started dropping enough in price to at
| least be feasible as a luxury good maybe a decade ago. This
| place seems optimistic? https://blog.ballard.com/fuel-cell-
| price-drop
|
| Any experts in chemistry or industry have any idea how
| plausible those projections are? It's a vendor, so I take it
| with a grain of salt. A hydrogen city bus is still more than
| double the cost of a diesel bus, even before thinking about the
| need to refuel it.
| xkjkls wrote:
| > What are the odds batteries hit a wall before they're viable
| in heavy trucks? I dunno but certainly not zero.
|
| Lithium Ion battery costs have improved tremendously over the
| past few decades, but energy density has not improved at nearly
| the same rate. Energy density is the primary problem with
| electric trucking, because it significantly reduces the payload
| a truck can provide for a given range. I would be skeptical of
| electric heavy trucks without a real breakthrough in energy
| density.
| bluGill wrote:
| We can actually predict when batteries will hit the wall.
| Chemical laws are known well enough to put a limit. We use
| lithium batteries for reasons related to physical rules like
| electro-negativity (I'm too long from my chemistry to do more
| than throw out the right terms). The periodic table of the
| elements puts a limit on how much power different chemical
| reactions can produce. We can thus calculate a theoretical max
| battery beyond which nothing is possible. In the real world
| that maximum might need atoms that are unstable (more energy
| released by atomic decay), but we can ignore that for the
| theory.
|
| I don't remember enough chemistry to do the above calculations.
| Someone does though, and they tell me that batteries won't get
| more than 4x smaller (I of course can't verify this claim -
| perhaps someone else can).
| rriepe wrote:
| Thunderf00t on Youtube loves these types of analyses. You can
| find one in almost every one of his videos. He does not have
| a lot of nice things to say about Elon Musk.
|
| His page: https://www.youtube.com/user/Thunderf00t
| imtringued wrote:
| Common Sense Skeptic has better arguments against Elon Musk
| though.
| rriepe wrote:
| Thanks, just subbed
| bluGill wrote:
| Interesting, but I'm not convinced. There is a big
| different between Musk being overly optimistic, and the
| ideas themselves being unsound. Musk does have his share of
| unsound idea, but he also has many ideas that are probably
| good but ahead of their time. Attacking an ahead of their
| time idea as unsound is wrong analysis. (I happened to
| watch the one on hyperloop - which clearly is a lot of
| vaporware - but don't confuse that with being a bad idea.
| Also don't confuse it being a good idea with it being
| something that anyone working on now will make work)
| rriepe wrote:
| Hyperloop is definitely lower-hanging fruit than Tesla.
| Of SpaceX, Hyperloop, Boring and Tesla, Tesla is easily
| the least scammy. But this particular energy density
| argument does come up pretty much any time he talks about
| Tesla.
| yakz wrote:
| Why do you say that Tesla is less scammy than SpaceX?
| EricE wrote:
| Yeah, ThunderfOOt isn't exactly a reliable source -
| especially when it comes to Musk. I'm no Tesla sycophant -
| I'm plenty of skeptical with much of what Tesla is and how
| they operate - but ThuderfOOt comes across as someone with
| an axe to grind. Which is fine - just don't get all huffy
| when people call you out on it.
| rriepe wrote:
| Call me out on what? Watching Phil Mason? I enjoy The
| Flaming Lips too. Should I get upset when people don't
| like them?
|
| Thanks for the warning but I'm trying to save the
| huffiness for when people attack my own work. I've
| already got a backlog there, with just that alone.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Electrode potentials are what you're probably thinking about.
|
| Lithium is at one end, but we could work on the other end to
| get the greatest difference.
|
| It's a relative scale. Hydrogen was just chosen as 0, but
| that's an arbitrary choice.
|
| Looking forward to lithium-fluoride or lithium-gold
| batteries.
|
| https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/electrode-potential-
| d_482...
| Ekaros wrote:
| Lithium fluoride sounds like battery chemistry that makes
| things even more fun when things go wrong...
| consp wrote:
| Thank you for this info. Now I realize why I heard some
| chatter about lithium bromide batteries a while back.
| Probably the "easier" to work with and cheaper instead of
| gold/chlorine/fluorine.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Sodium-bromide in particular looks like a cheap, highly
| available, easy to handle pair that can fill every one of
| those niches that don't really care about energy density.
|
| But current batteries use metal compounds, where the
| metal itself is never completely oxidized or reduced.
| Those are much easier to design, as you can simply place
| an ion exchange membrane separating the poles. AFAIK,
| nobody has any idea how a metal-halogen battery would
| work.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > We use lithium batteries for reasons related to physical
| rules like electro-negativity (I'm too long from my chemistry
| to do more than throw out the right terms).
|
| Electronegativity is the tendency of elements to hold onto
| elements in a chemical bond, which determines the primary
| character of a bond (ionic or covalent) as well as things
| like dipole moments. What you actually want is redox
| potential, how much energy you can get out of reducing or
| oxidizing an ion in the reduction or oxidation half-reaction.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| >I would bet my money on internet comments being wrong when it
| comes to predicting the future of heavy industry on a timeline
| longer than a couple quarters.
|
| You're probably right, although I'd probably go short on
| hydrogen in trucks. It seems hard to store, transport, requires
| a new infrastructure, etc. I expect they'll use this new
| fangled technology called 'diesel'.
|
| I'm surprised when I don't hear more about the lower hanging
| fruit. The fact that Fedex/UPS haven't gone wholesale into
| electric is telling at this point, I expect they'll do it when
| some spreadsheet shows 10 cents in savings companywide. The
| champions for electric trucks should push for trash pickup,
| route sales, local delivery, etc. and not bother with long haul
| for now.
|
| You could argue that a good place for hydrogen would be non-
| electric trains. When the bugs get worked out of that perhaps
| long distance trucking might have a chance.
|
| edit: as an aside, I can see where large scale fleet decisions
| might be held back by fear of technology change. You'd sure
| hate to buy thousands of trucks only to have them made obsolete
| by some sort of large underlying change in design that's a no-
| brainer.
|
| It wouldn't surprise me if there isn't a certain braking effect
| on vehicle purchases generally because of the advances in EVs.
| There's a righteous fear in being an early adopter.
| dv_dt wrote:
| I think there's plenty of hints that Fedex and UPS are going
| electric, but taking time and thought into how it integrates.
| Not everything is a cloud provisioning script away from
| rollout.
|
| Fedex Plans to Electrify its Entire Fleet of Delivery
| Vehicles by 2040" [1]
|
| "UPS Orders 10000 Electric Delivery Trucks..." [2]
|
| [1] https://fordauthority.com/2021/03/fedex-plans-to-
| electrify-i...
|
| [2] https://www.boston.com/cars/car-news/2020/03/22/ups-
| orders-1...
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| They're talking about delivery vehicles (which lend
| themselves well to electric operation for the same reasons
| city buses do) not semi trucks.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| Delivery and route trucks really are the interesting test
| case for battery-powered vehicles. Assuming that someone
| in a government meeting room doesn't dictate their
| technology via fiat or subsidy, it's a case based purely
| on economic interests. Double bonus points for being a
| tolerably straightforward to calculate decision.
|
| I really can't foresee how it turns out, hopefully the
| battery tech has some room to run.
| dv_dt wrote:
| I think the government could beneficially move the bar
| with something like large guaranteed EV postal vehicle
| order with requirements to site key factories on the
| vehicles and batteries in the US. That would give
| businesses the order sheet backing to get loans and
| investment in place to build the capacity to supply the
| gov't order, but also as a good foundation for other
| customer uses.
| dv_dt wrote:
| Right, it takes time to rollout, and given battery
| factory constraints right now, even if a semi were 100%
| ready, you couldn't supply the batteries for the use for
| at least another two the tree years I would guess. So I
| think at best, right now, you'll see planning for
| delivery vehicles, with semis in earlier development.
| xkjkls wrote:
| Semis are an entirely different equation than delivery
| vans. They have more constraints around energy density,
| whereas vans have more constraints around price.
| dan_quixote wrote:
| > The fact that Fedex/UPS haven't gone wholesale into
| electric is telling at this point
|
| Both companies had a huge moat until Amazon came along blew
| their doors off. And Amazon has been investing heavily in
| electric delivery vehicles:
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/18/amazon-begins-testing-
| rivian...
| xkjkls wrote:
| This is very different from heavy trucks. These are
| electric delivery vans. No one is arguing whether electric
| vehicles can be effective in the small vehicle market; its
| the semi, 18-wheeler segment being discussed.
| jabl wrote:
| > The champions for electric trucks should push for trash
| pickup, route sales, local delivery, etc. and not bother with
| long haul for now.
|
| Indeed, and earlier we discussed plans for battery electric
| trucks by Volvo (one of the company's described in this
| article):
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24999239
|
| Batteries for short-haul, hydrogen (or something else) for
| long-haul.
| LeanderK wrote:
| I think quite a few countries will tighten their
| environmental regulations so that some solution will have to
| be found. Trucks running on Dieses crowding the highways will
| face strong opposition. The industry has to move somewhere.
|
| Germany might gain it's first green-party led government this
| year and they are racking up wins in a lot of countries in
| europe. I even see the rise of smaller "greener than green"
| parties here in southern germany. This might change the
| regulatory environment/taxes enough to fuel change.
|
| I don't think Volvo and Daimler make uniformed bets, so there
| must be some reasoning behind it.
| bluGill wrote:
| Volvo and Daimler cannot afford for someone else to get
| there and hold all the patents. If it doesn't work out at
| all they will lobby and get the laws changed. If it works
| out though they won't have a strong a position to lobby
| from (someone else proved it works, why can't you?) and
| risk losing that side of the business.
|
| That is enough reason for them to put money into R&D. It
| might or might not result in anything for many different
| reasons.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| > I don't think Volvo and Daimler make uniformed bets, so
| there must be some reasoning behind it.
|
| It's probably fair to contrast the EU vs. the USA for this.
| Given the geographic and political differences, I can see
| where a European market for trucks might be sufficient for
| the manufacturers to fund development efforts. I should
| have been clear that I was thinking primarily of the US,
| living here and all.
|
| It would be interesting to have a better overview on
| freight handling in the rest of the world. China tends to
| be left out of these discussions and I can't imagine wide
| swathes of Asia or Africa changing anytime soon.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > China tends to be left out of these discussions
|
| Volvo is a Chinese-owned company. While the company is
| headquartered and led in Sweden, it is safe to assume
| that the Chinese market is a strong consideration in
| everything they do.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| You're probably thinking of the car company.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| Volvo sold off their car subsidiary to Ford in 1999 and
| that was later bought by Geely. Volvo Trucks is still
| owned by the Swedish Volvo Group.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Indonesia reduced plastic bags quite a bit by a decree in
| a year. One of the great things about (semi)authoritarian
| states is how fast they can change. So China influenced
| parts of Asia could move quite fast when needed. And if
| they make the right bets - you can transform country in a
| generation. If you don't - well you have former communist
| bloc circa 1989.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The article is from a British publication and concerns
| two European vehicle manufacturers producing new
| vehicles, initially for Europe.
|
| "The Swedish truck-maker is aiming for half its European
| sales in 2030 to be trucks powered by batteries or
| hydrogen fuel cells"
|
| "About 300 high-performance hydrogen refueling points
| would be needed in Europe by 2025"
|
| I'm sure there's enough of a market in Europe for
| different trucks -- there's already different designs and
| different fuel preferences (diesel/gasoline).
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| >I'm sure there's enough of a market in Europe for
| different trucks
|
| Absolutely. Look at the heavy buy-in on diesel
| automobiles, and they sure weren't shy about
| subsidies/regulations to favor them.
| EricE wrote:
| Subsidies touting efficiencies that turned out to be
| fictional due to multiple manufactures committing pretty
| major fraud for decades that was only recently uncovered.
|
| Yeah, that government intervention worked out well :p
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Who says Fedex and UPS aren't all in on electric? Are you in
| their corporate meetings? People act like the mammoth
| transition of a civilization (or even a huge logistics
| company) would be on the order of 2-3 years, and not a
| generation.
|
| Public transit in many places has already switched to
| propane/LNG. Same with lots of municipal work trucks.
|
| Your first sentence is the attitude he's responding to: That
| trucking/logistics/cityworks are able to make their own
| refueling stations, build their own support infrastructure,
| etc. in ways that the public cannot, on the short term.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| >Who says Fedex and UPS aren't all in on electric?
|
| Because I haven't seen a single electric truck of any type
| by any service. Perhaps someone here has, love to hear
| about it. Since my wife is a shipping manager for a
| manufacturer, there is some anecdotal backing. (jeesh, why
| are people so religious about this stuff?).
|
| I don't doubt that they are planning a long term move at
| places like Fedex, but articles on it lead me to believe
| they are just dipping their toe in the water. A moon shot
| to accomplish something by 2040 is the opposite of all-in,
| they may not exist as a company in 20 years.
|
| In any case, as I was alluding to, short-haul trucking will
| electrify far before long-haul, for obvious reasons (and if
| it ever does)...at least for purely economic reasons. All
| bets are off if the hand of the state dictates a
| technology.
|
| > Your first sentence is the attitude he's responding to
|
| lol. What? That I doubt that you'll see hydrogen fueled
| long-haul trucking in the US? Care to make a bet on it?
| What is your time horizon on the bet?
| callalex wrote:
| I see electric fedex and ups delivery trucks all the time
| in several SF Bay Area counties. Anecdotes aren't very
| useful in broad analysis.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| OK, I looked it up.
|
| The Fedex fleet is a little over 1% electric...and that
| includes forklifts and airport equipment.
|
| Like I keep saying, they'll be all over this tech when it
| really pencils out.
| jsight wrote:
| I think that MCS will help greatly to accelerate things. Fear
| of building infrastructure for a new tech has to be a huge
| part of it.
|
| A lot of folks have toes in the water with Tesla semi orders,
| though. I expect that to grow pretty quickly if the first
| ones work well for regional distribution, and that is really
| their strength.
|
| That new fangled "diesel" stuff is really hard to beat for
| long distance trucking.
| dv_dt wrote:
| I think EV shipping trucks are much more viable a use for
| automated rapid battery swaps. Extend front cab a bit, put a
| big rectangle of a battery module behind, or under an expanded
| sleeper space. If all it takes is rolling through an automated
| bay for x min to swap out to a new charged pack then you really
| don't need some superbattery (or hydrogen).
| thescriptkiddie wrote:
| You could also avoid the need to deal with large batteries by
| having the truck draw power from an overhead wire. For bonus
| points you could put the whole thing on rails, eliminating
| the need for the truck driver.
| dv_dt wrote:
| I could see all of the above happening with different mixes
| of needs of routes, infrastructure, and investment.
| [deleted]
| ephbit wrote:
| Sounds like you're underestimating the underlying logistics
| of swapping out huge/heavy battery packs.
|
| If you use the throughput (trucks refueled per period of
| time) of a conventional gas station as a benchmark to compare
| the battery pack swapping station with and try to think of
| all the additional difficulties you might see why I'm
| skeptical about the swapping of batteries, even when
| automated.
|
| * Handling of liquid fuel is vastly less complicated than
| moving around heavy battery packs
|
| * Space requirements are much bigger (because of volumetric
| energy density) with battery packs
|
| * Battery packs may very well need to be transported to _and_
| from swapping stations, whereas fuel only goes to stations
|
| All in all, seems to me that the flexibility that everyone is
| used to with liquid fuels is near unattainable with battery
| swapping.
|
| I'm very inclined to bet that we'll be relying on liquid
| fuels for quite a number of years to come.
|
| Might be methanol for electeic vehicles equipped with
| methanol fuel cells or maybe even formic acid.
|
| Hydrogen, I'm skeptical about it. Too much of a hassle.
| fulafel wrote:
| Or while we're at it, a standard energy module that could be
| a battery, hydrogen fuel cell + tank, or something else.
| dv_dt wrote:
| Well maybe, I wonder about the cost efficiencies of
| multiple fuel cells in modules (usually they're pretty
| expensive because of the use of costly metals like
| palladium/platinum). Moving the cell out of the module
| obviously makes for a dedicated battery truck or dedicated
| hydrogen truck, but modular automatic liquid fuel let alone
| hydrogen links I would imagine is hard to keep reliable vs
| an electrical interface.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Is there anyone in the know on this thread as to how hydrogen
| compares to the other 'greenish' fuels? Ammonia, methane,
| methanol/ethanol etc.
|
| It always seems to me that hydrogen is just so, so hard to store,
| that just about any other fuel ought to be more practical. Cars
| running on natural gas already do exist, as does some infra - so
| maybe it's not such a far cry?
| sam_goody wrote:
| I bet a lot of people read this and think "Well, looks like a
| good time to buy Tesla."
|
| Perceptually, this means the "Europeans" are not competing in the
| electric truck market; the market which is believed by most to be
| the future.
|
| [IMO, electric trucks _are_ the future. However, that is
| incidental, as stocks rise on perception, not fact]
| speedgoose wrote:
| Volvo already sells battery powered electric trucks. I have
| seen a few of them used in Oslo.
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Seems like Trucks would be ideal for swapping out batteries at
| refuelling stops. Since they more or less travel at the top speed
| limit.
| jhoechtl wrote:
| > "Fuel cells and hydrogen will play a super-important role,"
|
| That's the point. It's not hydrogen as the fuel to drive the
| power train but as the storage medium to generate electricity
| which drives the power train.
|
| This article is not a lobbyists knee-jerk reaction but a topic
| deserving much more attention than being buried in Tesla stock
| market tickers.
| Bapuff wrote:
| This truck will be mass produced by 2026 but there are some
| difficulties ahead
|
| First it is a liquid hydrogen one, second they are calling for
| massive investments from government
|
| Volvo is selling very well a lng truck, and the biolng theme
| makes it quite compelling.
| scythe wrote:
| I keep hearing about hydrogen and batteries being an either/or
| problem, but it doesn't make sense. For one thing, gas/electric
| hybrids exist and have been successful despite requiring _two
| engines_.
|
| But with hydrogen it's even simpler because a fuel cell already
| feeds an electric motor. You only need one engine to use both
| forms of storage. And the advantage of putting a battery in your
| hydrogen vehicle is immense: you get cycle optimization,
| regenerative braking, improved peak acceleration _and_ cheaper
| short trips (w / plug-in hybrid) because while hydrogen can
| compete with electricity on convenience, it will never compete on
| price.
|
| Granted, the battery brings a weight penalty, but potentially
| much less than if you tried to deliver 600 miles of range with 18
| wheels and 60 tons gvw.
|
| Is this a problem for Tesla? Not if they just acquire a hydrogen
| startup if/when the time comes. The market for pure electric
| vehicles will not go anywhere. The question is whether the
| administration has the necessary competence.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > For one thing, gas/electric hybrids exist and have been
| successful despite requiring two engines.
|
| Hybrids are pretty simple. Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive is
| basically a replacement transmission and is much more basic in
| design than a conventional automatic. HSD reduces the number of
| planetary gear trains to just one, replaces the large number of
| clutch packs with two electric motors, and eliminates the
| torque converter all together.
|
| One could build a working HSD unit using 1920s technology. It
| just would need to be manually operated (probably using a lever
| similar to an aircraft throttle).
| [deleted]
| kasperni wrote:
| The main thing hydrogen has going for it is the stored energy by
| weight which is around 142 MJ/kg. Lithium batteries are less than
| 1 MJ/kg. So around a factory 200x difference. Ir you want to find
| something better than hydrogen energy/kg wise you have to go
| nuclear.
| ragebol wrote:
| But what is the volume of a kilo of hydrogen at practical
| pressures?
| bildung wrote:
| 42 kg/m3 or 0.024 m3 per kg at the usual 700 bar.
| gilbetron wrote:
| Looks like a ballpark, current practical volume is around 25
| liters per kg: https://energies.airliquide.com/resources-
| planet-hydrogen/ho...
|
| I think the greater issue with Hydrogen is how it likes to go
| boom, and the greater the energy density you store it at, the
| bigger the boom!
| toxik wrote:
| This is also one of the benefits of diesel, it doesn't
| ignite so easily.
| SigmundA wrote:
| Look at volume instead of weight. Hydrogen is only 8 MJ/L in
| liquid form vs 38MJ/L for Diesel. Think of the space needed in
| the vehicle.
|
| Next creating liquid hydrogen is a very energy intensive
| process compared to refining diesel.
|
| Next energy in lithium batteries is converted to mechanical
| energy with +90% efficiency in a modern electrical motor. Fuel
| cells just like combustion engines are only 40-60%.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Most commercial trucks are lacking for weight, not for
| volume.
|
| They wouldn't use all those axles and tires if they didn't
| need to.
|
| Weight and charging time are the current major roadblocks to
| adopting batteries. Hydrogen theoretically solves those but
| introduces a lot of technical complexity along the way and
| needs a supply chain that currently doesn't exist.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The problem with all those calculations is that storing
| hydrogen requires a lot of weight.
|
| If hydrogen were such a great idea, trucks would be already
| migrating to the in-between solution that is natural gas.
| albrewer wrote:
| I second this insight. I'm a pressure vessel designer by
| trade. I got my numbers for all of this here[0]
|
| Liquefied hydrogen either needs to be stored
| cryogenically as a liquid, or at a very high pressure as
| a gas (65 MPa). I'm ignoring adsorption methods here.
|
| Given that we can't continuously maintain -253 degC all
| the time, this method is impractical for mobile usage.
|
| That leaves gaseous storage. To match the current range
| of diesel tractor-trailers, you'd need at least 4x the
| volume in hydrogen to come close to the standard of 600
| miles between refills. I'm going to assume we need to
| store 1500 L of hydrogen to match the range.
|
| Other assumptions:
|
| The tank has a max overall length of roughly 2.5 meters.
|
| Inner and outer corrosion / gouge allowance of 6mm
|
| Design temperature of 200 degC (in case of fire).
|
| Material of construction is A-387 5 2 (5% Cr, 2% Mo
| steel) lined with something that prevents diffusion into
| and hydrogen embrittlement of the base metal.
|
| Vessel consists of a cylinder with spherical head on
| either end.
|
| Given:
|
| Inner diameter is 890mm, shell length is 1830mm,
| allowable stress is 178 MPa at the design temperature, we
| can use equation 4.3.1 from the ASME BPVC Section VIII
| Division 2 to determine the minimum thickness required
| for the given pressure.
|
| D is the corroded inner diameter of the vessel, P is the
| design pressure, S is the allowable stress, and E is the
| weld joint efficiency (assumed 1).
|
| D / 2 * (exp[P / (S * E)] - 1) + Corrosion
|
| 902 / 2 * (exp[65 / (178 * 1)] - 1) + 12 = 211mm wall
| thickness
|
| The weight of just the cylinder at that thickness with a
| length of 1.83m (without the spherical heads) is 11,000
| kg.
|
| At that weight, batteries are pretty competitive.
|
| [0]: https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-
| storage-basic...
| thehappypm wrote:
| Trucks maybe aren't, but city buses certainly are, all
| over the country. That's likely because of the
| infrastructure. You don't need to dot the entire country
| with LNG stops for your city buses, just a few fuel-up
| points here and there around town.
| SigmundA wrote:
| I don't see a lot of extra room on a truck for safe liquid
| hydrogen tanks 5 times the size of diesel tanks.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Split trucks have lots of room.
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4Bk7-L7ffiY
| SigmundA wrote:
| Long wheelbase sleepers are very difficult to maneuver,
| they are pretty specialized and you won't see them in
| Europe do to length restrictions.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Sure, but it's an absurd example of space not being a
| particularly critical factor. That thing is a huge factor
| bigger than the volume of the fuel tanks.
| SigmundA wrote:
| Not sure why you say that, its very critical in Europe
| and still a concern in the US.
| darksaints wrote:
| That would be true for cars, not so much for trucks. Most
| trucks hit their mass limits long before they hit their
| volume limits. Most box trucks, for example, are
| transporting more air by volume than cargo.
| SigmundA wrote:
| Trucks have length limits and more constrained in Europe
| which is why you still see many cab overs there. The US
| loosened length limits in the 70's allowing for long nose
| trucks which help with aero dynamics and safety.
| JoblessWonder wrote:
| Thanks for explaining why Europe has mostly cab overs....
| I noticed it but never bothered to figure out why!
| darksaints wrote:
| So you don't store it on the tractor itself, you store it
| with the trailer. That's how your god Elon is proposing
| to do it with batteries.
| SigmundA wrote:
| Yes with 10,000 psi hydrogen lines from trailer to
| tractor and expensive tanks on the trailer.
|
| AFAIK the Tesla semi has all batteries in the tractor.
|
| He is most certainly not my god.
| darksaints wrote:
| The Tesla semi, without batteries on the trailer, is
| limited to about 500kWh of batteries...maybe 1000kWh if
| you have some extremely clever engineering. You can't
| really do much more than that without moving to a
| monocoque carbon frame to offset the weight, because the
| batteries are too dense. Commercial trucks have total
| weight limits, but they also have per-axle weight limits.
| If you are too heavy on a single axle, you're illegal.
|
| And while 500kWh batteries, are awesome and the perfect
| use case for local delivery, they won't cut it for OTR
| trucking. You need 700 mi of range at an absolute minimum
| for singles, ~2000mi for doubles. The weight of a 700
| mile battery is a non-starter. Tesla's largest battery
| pack that they're even considering selling has a 500 mi
| range.
|
| There is a reason Tesla quotes kWh/mile, and not kWh/lb-
| mi (cargo, not GVW). They aren't competitive, and they
| likely never will be. And adding more batteries just
| makes the economics less competitive. There's a saying in
| the aircraft industry: it takes a lot of fuel to fly a
| lot of fuel. The same goes for batteries: it takes a lot
| of battery to move a lot of battery. Batteries, no matter
| what technical advances can be made, have limitations
| posed by the laws of physics, and none of them will ever
| have the energy density to make sense for long haul
| trucking. Which is why _actual trucking companies that
| have actually beat His Lord and Savior Elon Musk to
| market with electric trucks (i.e. Volvo) are still
| looking to better alternatives in the long run_.
| SigmundA wrote:
| So now how much does a hydrogen fuel cell semi weigh
| whats its range? How much does it cost? Where do you fill
| it up?
|
| Current hydrogen fuel cell vehicles weight more than an
| equivalent battery powered car not not even looking at
| cost and power and refueling infrastructure.
|
| I agree that diesel is most viable for long haul and
| probably will be for some time and still has room to
| improve see Frieghtliners SuperTruck.
| darksaints wrote:
| Fuel cell technology used in cars is inferior to battery
| technology cars. But it's not comparable here. A light,
| intermittently used vehicle, with fast startup and
| frequent shutoff, and with no long range requirements,
| does not have the same set of constraints that class 8
| trucks do. Holy Father Elon's criticism of fuel cells in
| passenger vehicles do not apply here at all.
|
| 800hp fuel cell: 500-600lbs, 3 cubic feet. 60% efficiency
| baseline, easily augmented to 75% with heat recovery.
| https://technology.nasa.gov/patent/LEW-TOPS-120
|
| Runs on any hydrogen-based fuel: pure hydrogen, methane,
| butane, propane, gasoline, avgas, diesel, ammonia,
| whatever. In fact, you can mix fuels in the same tank,
| and the SOFC will consume them regardless. Use any
| infrastructure that you want. Use any fuel system that
| you want. You can start out running standard low-sulfur
| diesel, or use natural gas or propane with standard
| modifications that are already used for diesel
| conversions all over the third world. If hydrogen storage
| works out for your use case, then use it. If it doesn't,
| then just use diesel and wait for synthetic fuels to drop
| in price.
|
| There will never be a battery-powered truck that can
| compete with that value proposition for long haul
| trucking.
| SigmundA wrote:
| "Never" is bold statement, bottom line current battery
| technology is lighter than current fuel cell technology
| in production vehicles while being simpler and more cost
| effective.
|
| Please let me know when that situation changes I am not
| confident in either technology to state it will never
| happen.
| darksaints wrote:
| You will also never be lighter than air, no matter how
| many diets you go on. Never isn't a bold statement at all
| when you're dealing with the laws of physics.
|
| Batteries are rapidly improving, but they would have to
| exceed the physical electron carrying capacity of all
| known battery materials if it wants to get somewhere
| within an order of magnitude where they need to be for
| long haul trucking.
| SigmundA wrote:
| The theoretical maximum for a lithium anode battery
| (sulfur cathode) is 2600 wh/kg nearly 10 times the
| current cells used in vehicles.
| rurounijones wrote:
| You might find a more willing-to-listen audience if you
| lay of the "You people all worship Elon like a god"
| angle.
| darksaints wrote:
| I'm not wrong. Have you seen his posts? They're literally
| a regurgitation of Elon statements and tweets. I have no
| interest in convincing religious cultists that they're
| wrong. I merely post to correct misinformation from them.
| SigmundA wrote:
| I am regurgitating facts as I know them, if they happen
| to line up with Elon that is not by choice, I am not the
| cultist here.
| darksaints wrote:
| SOHCs are approaching 100% conversion efficiency, and SOFCs
| have 60% baseline efficiency, and with practical heat
| conversion technologies, have closer to 75% efficiency. And
| they can use hydrocarbon fuels which can open up fuel options
| to synthetic fuels that have more reasonable mass/volume
| tradeoffs.
| SigmundA wrote:
| Heat conversion is going to mean more equipment (heat
| recovery turbine?). SOHCS run at what 1000c?
|
| Don't see that being practical for vehicle use any time
| soon.
| darksaints wrote:
| Heat recovery turbines are awesome. A single moving part,
| that's it. And those temperatures are not a problem at
| all. Standard off-the-shelf calcium silicate insulation
| will work fine.
| SigmundA wrote:
| Single moving part and generator and power control. None
| of that is free in terms of complexity, weight and cost.
| This is on top of whats needed for the fuel cell, plus
| you will probably need a buffer battery to fully utilize.
|
| Makes more sense to look at heat recovery turbines for a
| diesel engine which is exactly what Freightliner is doing
| with their Supertruck bringing its thermal efficiency up
| around 60%.
| darksaints wrote:
| It makes _less_ sense on a diesel engine because their
| heat sources are lower temp. Fuel cells produce much more
| useful heat for a heat engine to capture.
|
| And no, the complexity of heat recovery isn't high at
| all. The costs pay themselves off almost immediately.
| They're orders of magnitude less complex than an ICE,
| last almost forever, and require almost no maintenance
| apart from cleaning after tens of thousands of hours. If
| a modern heat recovery turbine is too complex, then so is
| an electric motor.
| SigmundA wrote:
| Diesel exhaust temps are around 600c SOFC operate
| 600c-1000c.
|
| Heat recovery turbines use either organic Rankine cycle
| (steam turbine) or Brayton where the fuel cell replaces
| or is along side the combustion chamber in a gas turbine.
|
| Comparing the complexity of a Heat recovery turbine to an
| electric motor is absurd. Let me know when a SOFC with
| recovery turbine is in a truck.
| darksaints wrote:
| It's a turbine. It spins inside a housing. It has an
| input and an output. Modern turbines don't even have
| oil...they use ceramic air bearings that might need to be
| replaced sometime after you die.
| SigmundA wrote:
| A turbine does nothing by itself again an absurd
| statement. A heat recovery turbine has a host of support
| systems to actually recover heat including a generator
| which is essentially an electric motor to capture
| electrical energy.
|
| I don't see a lot of gas turbines in various use around
| me, and the ones that are are quite expensive to fix. I
| do however see electric motors everywhere and they are
| extremely reliable and cheap.
| seryoiupfurds wrote:
| So SOFC seems to be a solid oxide fuel cell[0], but despite
| the automotive context I don't think SOHC means single
| overhead camshaft here.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_oxide_fuel_cell
| darksaints wrote:
| Sorry, meant SOEC. Meant for converting water +
| electricity into hydrogen.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_oxide_electrolyzer_ce
| ll
|
| High temperature operation is what allows it to have such
| high conversion efficiency.
|
| http://www.helmeth.eu/index.php/technologies/high-
| temperatur...
| bildung wrote:
| OTOH, using the model 3 as an example, you have to drive
| around 480kg of batteries all the time, while the same energy
| (75kWh/270MJ) in hydrogen would only amount to less than 2
| kg.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| The Toyota Mirai Hydrogen car is slightly heavier than a
| Model 3.
| SigmundA wrote:
| You won't get 75Wh to the wheel with 2kg and the hydrogen
| tanks and fuel cells have weight.
| bildung wrote:
| Yes, obviously, but even then batteries are multiple
| times heavier. A fuel cell for this size is about 50kg
| currently, and a tank 50-80kg. The Mirai has a tank for
| 5kg hydrogen which weighs about 90kg:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Mirai
| SigmundA wrote:
| Mirai: 1,850 kg
|
| Model 3 (Long-Range Dual-Motor): 1,847kg
|
| I am going to guess it's all the structure needed to
| protect the 10,000 psi hydrogen tanks.
| bildung wrote:
| Or you don't guess, follow the link instead and find out
| the Mirai is a) a bigger car and b) a hybrid, complete
| with electric motor and battery pack.
| jsight wrote:
| Doesn't the Mirai have less passenger and cargo room than
| the 3 due to the inherent packaging issues with hydrogen?
| SigmundA wrote:
| The Mirai has a 1.6 kwh battery pack because the fuel
| cell cannot output the needed power for acceleration and
| to allow regenerative braking. It runs on the electric
| motor alone just like a Tesla. But yeah so add the buffer
| battery in your weight calculations needed for a fuel
| cell vehicle.
|
| Pretty minor difference in size, unclear how that
| translates into usable space:
|
| Mirai Length 4,890 mm Width 1,815 mm Height 1,535 mm
|
| Model 3 Length 4,694 mm Width 1,849 mm Height 1,443 mm
|
| Also note the Mirai has a single 113kw motor (even with
| buffer battery to help) while the long range single motor
| model 3 is 211kw and only weighs 1730kg, I actually
| posted the heaviest performance AWD model 3.
|
| The Tesla completely outperforms the Mirai in cost,
| weight, ease of charging and performance.
| bildung wrote:
| Nothing of this is relevant for the question of the
| weight of a hydrogen tank.
| SigmundA wrote:
| Seem pretty relevant to look at the final weight, cost
| and performance of a vehicle when claiming fuel cells are
| superior to batteries due to hydrogens weight.
|
| Bottom line your example hydrogen fuel cell car weighs
| with a smaller motor more than a equivalent battery
| powered one, the question is why if hydrogen is so much
| lighter than a lithium battery?
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Why is this down-voted? It's correct, even though it is
| counter-intuitive! The battery electric Model 3 LR gets
| more range and weighs less (while also being MUCH faster
| and cheaper to operate and more convenient to charge...).
| albrewer wrote:
| I design pressure vessel for a living. At the pressures
| required for hydrogen, required vessel wall thickness
| goes up really fast as diameter increases. I commented
| elsewhere about the weights required for a tractor
| trailer - to carry the volume required and maintain the
| same refill range, you'd need an 11,000kg cylinder to
| contain the hydrogen.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Ironically, at least last time I checked 1-2 years ago, the
| Long Range Model 3 weighs less than the hydrogen Mirai and
| has more range.
|
| Doesn't matter what theoretical weight of hydrogen is when
| you have so much overhead the battery version weighs less!
| this is because: 1) hydrogen must be compressed. The
| compressed tank has to have high margins so it's safe on
| the road. That means a much heavier tank than you might
| think 2) the fuel cell itself is expensive and weighs a
| lot! 3) fuel cells are MUCH less efficient so the useful
| energy isn't what you think it is. That also means a lot of
| heat needs to be rejected which means: 4) heavy radiator
| (whose cooling also compromises aerodynamics), air filter
| and handling, you still need a lithium battery in there to
| handle regenerative braking and bursts of power, a bunch of
| high pressure hydrogen-rated valves which aren't
| lightweight, etc.
|
| May as well look at the weight of electrons in a battery as
| just look at the weight of hydrogen gas in a hydrogen
| car...
| y04nn wrote:
| You have to factor in the losses inherent to hydrogen energy
| storage. You have to produce the hydrogen, compress it and then
| use a fuel cell to convert it back to electricity. If you
| account for all the losses, I bet that in practice, storing
| electricity with hydrogen is not so much different than using
| lithium batteries. Does anyone have some figures?
| intrasight wrote:
| https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2019/08/hydroge.
| .. has a good infographic showing overall efficiency.
|
| And this text:
|
| With battery-powered e-cars, only eight percent of the energy
| is lost during transport before the electricity is stored in
| the batteries of the vehicles. When the electrical energy
| used to drive the electric motor is converted, another 18
| percent is lost. This gives the battery-operated electric car
| an efficiency level of between 70 to 80 percent, depending on
| the model.
|
| With the hydrogen-powered electric car, the losses are
| significantly greater: 45 percent of the energy is already
| lost during the production of hydrogen through electrolysis.
| Of this remaining 55 percent of the original energy, another
| 55 percent is lost when hydrogen is converted into
| electricity in the vehicle. This means that the hydrogen-
| powered electric car only achieves an efficiency of between
| 25 to 35 percent, depending on the model.
| intrasight wrote:
| But there's other ways to produce hydrogen that are both
| more efficient and "greener" - using algae
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biohydrogen
|
| Also I just found out that over 90% of our hydrogen comes
| from "natural gas reforming"
| https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-production-
| na...
| skystarman wrote:
| Hydrogen is far more efficient. At least for long-haul class
| 7 & 8 trucks. The problem is the massive infrastructure
| investment needed to support it.
|
| All the substantial investments I've seen in commercial long-
| haul trucking are in hydrogen. You have Tesla, Nikola and
| others claiming they have a long-haul battery solution but
| they are full of shit. Tesla has already delayed their Semi
| for 3 years now. Nikola is a joke but even they were pushing
| hydrogen along with their BEV stuff. And the legacy CV
| companies are, again, only investing in BEV for short-haul
| stuff.
| thehappypm wrote:
| The losses can be made to be completely irrelevant though.
| There are many places on Earth with abundant energy -- think
| hydro plants in the middle of Wyoming, geothermal plants in
| Iceland -- that simply are too far away from population
| centers to be directly viable. Those places are where
| hydrogen will be produced, since you can pipe hydrogen
| basically infinitely, or compress and ship on-site.
| whalesalad wrote:
| Yes! Electric energy transmission and storage is a really hard
| problem when you look at it compared to liquid fuels. This is
| the nut to crack.
| cellularmitosis wrote:
| Should we instead focus on sustainable liquid fuels? Diesel
| from algae for example?
| davidrm wrote:
| Yes, but that's not the e2e efficiency of the hydrogen
| powertrain, a 120kW hydrogen stack found in Hyundai Nexo is as
| big as an average petrol engine and its energy efficiency is
| somewhere around 45%, so it's not only the hydrogen tanks and
| the hydrogen inside it. If we're going to analyze the
| volumetric and mass efficiency and compare it to a BEV, then we
| need to take everything into the account.
|
| Majority of hydrogen produced is made from processing oil, the
| energy efficiency of "green" hydrogen (electrolysis) is very
| poor and thus expensive.
|
| I believe there's a strong chance of using hydrogen for long
| haul type of transportation, however, there are a lot of
| misconceptions about the technology and its general
| practicality.
| OscarTheGrinch wrote:
| These trucks will be super useful in transporting all the
| necessary hydrogen around!
| Theodores wrote:
| In the UK we used to have coal powered trains that were useful
| for moving coal around. Lots was needed.
| Mvandenbergh wrote:
| There's obviously a lot of complexities here and clear reasons
| why many in the transport industry think this is the solution. If
| they didn't Volvo and Daimler would be announcing their bet on
| BEV, right? Unlike oil majors, they have no sunk-cost reason to
| prefer one over the other and a lot of the technical change is
| shared between the platforms. A FCEV is just a BEV with a small
| battery, a small fuel cell, and a big hydrogen tank.
|
| That being the case, it feels a bit easy to just say, "obviously
| this doesn't make sense".
|
| However there are a few important differences between trucks and
| passenger cars that actually reduce some of the issues with EV
| trucking. A long-haul truck probably needs about 700kWh to 1MWh
| of battery storage. How long does that take to charge?
|
| Some constraints on passenger car charging become less relevant
| when you're serving a professional audience and can have staff
| on-site to help. Cable thickness / weight is an ergonomic
| constraint that can be relaxed if you are serving truckers and
| not the 99th percentile of the public. You can even mount them on
| articulated arms on a gantry so that you're not dragging them
| around.
|
| Multiple cables charging in parallel? Inconvenient on a passenger
| car, perfectly sensible on a truck.
|
| Liquid cooling loop to external chiller? Again, that just doesn't
| work if you're building tens of thousands of chargers for the
| public, may well be worthwhile on network of truck refilling
| stations.
|
| In the EU, there is already a mandatory 45 minute break every 4
| hrs 30 mins. So there is no need for trucks that can drive for 12
| hours on a tank. (US rules are in theory laxer but in practice
| insurance companies also insist on break rules).
|
| So the real question is whether you can make the charging process
| fast enough to get approx. 4:30 extra capacity in 45 minutes.
| That's probably about 800kWh in 40 minutes of actual charging
| (assume time to connect and disconnect) or 1.2MW.
|
| 350kW chargers are installed and operating now (though I'm not
| sure how many cars can actually use them at that power) so
| naively you would think that running 4 of those in parallel would
| give you the charging tech required to run trucks today.
|
| Hydrogen may still be cheaper for truck transport once you work
| out all the costs and logistics but I don't think it's wildly
| impossible either.
|
| The big advantage that hydrogen has is that the cost of hydrogen
| tanks scales much more slowly than batteries. If pack price is
| $100/kWh then you need $70k-$100k worth of batteries. Doesn't
| seem crazy for a truck but a tank that can hold equivalent H2 at
| pressure is much cheaper. Takes up a lot of space but trucking is
| mass limited rather than volume limited.
| darksaints wrote:
| Volvo has already bet pretty big on Battery-powered trucks.
| They've actually started full scale production already, beating
| Elon's fantasy truck to market:
|
| https://www.volvotrucks.us/trucks/vnr-electric/
|
| For some reason, otherwise intelligent people seem to think
| that hydrogen and batteries are diametrically opposed and that
| if you bet on one, you can't bet on the other. The reality is
| that they're both awesome and have a lot of potential, and
| they're both worth betting on. But batteries will never have
| the range that is required of long haul trucking. Their
| research into hydrogen is entirely consistent with this. BEVs
| for short haul, FCEVs for long haul.
|
| As to the rest of your post, I'm not big on pure hydrogen, but
| solid oxide fuel cells don't necessarily require hydrogen
| storage. At least not in the compressed sense. They can easily
| use any form of fuel you can throw at it. Synthetic fuels are
| the future of renewable energy for long range use cases.
|
| There is an efficiency hit to creating synthetic fuels, and an
| efficiency hit to converting them back to hydrogen, but
| efficiency doesn't actually matter...at least not directly. For
| example, we have had 60% efficient engines for a long time, but
| we still buy cars with 35-40% efficiency. What matters is
| dollars per work done. Synthetic fuel production can _extremely
| cheaply_ be manufactured with off-peak surplus renewable
| energy. And as we invest more in renewable production, that
| surplus is only going to grow larger and get cheaper.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Actually, there may be a few reasons why legacy truck
| manufacturers are pushing this agenda:
|
| 1) They've been pushing it for a long time and have already
| invested a lot. Most of that investment is going to have to be
| written off unless they find a use for all the hydrogen R&D. I
| note that it is mainly legacy manufacturers pushing this
| whereas battery operated trucks have a fair amount of startups
| in advanced stages of getting their trucks, buses, heavy mining
| vehicles etc. on the road.
|
| 2) Hydrogen trucks and their designs are a lot more similar to
| current trucks then battery electric ones. These manufacturers
| have a vested interest in their legacy production facilities
| and supply lines and milking that investment as long as
| possible is a goal for them. Their real goal is exactly that:
| keeping the infrastructure that produces Diesel trucks going
| for a few extra years. That's also the elephant in the room:
| their operational cost of hydrogen trucks is going to be much
| higher than battery electric trucks; or even Diesel trucks. The
| fuel cost is higher and they have about the same complexity as
| Diesel trucks.
|
| 3) There is a lot of government money flowing into the hydrogen
| sector and getting in on that action is interesting for big
| companies. Given future availability of this stuff, and the
| subsidies, there is going to be a market for trucks that run on
| it. Even if it is tiny, it might still be interesting. Unless
| of course battery trucks take off and destroy the business case
| for this. Like happened to hydrogen cars.
|
| Storing 1Mwh of electricity might actually be pretty fast and
| not necessarily a lot slower than charging a normal EV. A
| battery contains numerous cells that you charge at the same
| time. All it takes is a lot of power and temperature control
| (and thick cables).
|
| The answer to how fast or how slow this will be is more or less
| a function of how much speed is worth to a trucking company.
| Idling trucks and drivers cost money. But then trucks needing
| regular maintenance are also idling. And drivers need to take
| breaks regardless of whether their trucks need charging. And
| drivers might ultimately no longer be needed if trucks become
| autonomous.
|
| People pay for getting stuff from A to B. The rest is just a
| means to an end. Trucking cleanly, cheaply, and reliably is
| what matters. Cost per mile basically. There is a notion of
| good enough here. E.g. having lots of charging stations and
| trucks that charge to a reasonable percentage in say 45 minutes
| might mean that a 45 minute break every 6 hours or so might not
| be the end of the world for a lot of drivers and trucking
| companies. Entirely feasible with current battery technology.
| Tesla is basically pimping 500 mile ranges. That's more like a
| break every 10-12 hours or so. I imagine that, charging times,
| and cost per mile might improve quite a bit in the next ten
| years. Tesla is starting production end of this year
| apparently. And they are not alone in the market.
|
| Getting that break time down might of course be worth something
| to someone. But the question is how much that is and whether it
| justifies more complicated and more expensive technology like
| hydrogen. I suspect not a lot and just no.
| iamgopal wrote:
| What they know that I'm missing, for me, hydrogen is a dead
| horse.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| like this? "Time is right for hydrogen fuel in California,
| concludes new policy report " July 2004
|
| https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/07/26_rael...
| edhelas wrote:
| 90% of hydrogen worldwide is made using carbon sources. First de-
| carbonate that before talking about "clean energy".
|
| Most of the trucks nowadays can be replaced with trains. Let's
| focus on that first.
|
| This it not an engineering issue, it's a political and
| organizational issue.
| ultrastable wrote:
| thank you. it would be nice if there was more recognition of
| the whole energy chain rather than the pretense that lithium,
| electricity etc just spring fully-formed from the ether
| bildung wrote:
| _> 90% of hydrogen worldwide is made using carbon sources._
|
| Because 90% of worldwide energy _anything_ is currently non-
| renewable:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption
|
| Power to gas is actually a technology employed productively to
| convert excess renewable energy into hydrogen etc.:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-to-gas
|
| I fully agree with your goal, though I do think this isn't a
| first this than that situation.
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| So Volvo should give it all up and go into US political
| lobbying? Or learn how to build a train?
|
| I don't agree. Global warming is an issue that should be
| approached with a multi-prong attack. And, if there is a future
| where hydrogen is clean and abundant, there's no point waiting
| for it to start working on making it useful.
| warmwaffles wrote:
| > Most of the trucks nowadays can be replaced with trains.
| Let's focus on that first.
|
| Yes and no. Trains do not work well for distribution centers
| like walmart, krogers, target, etc... The last 1-100 miles will
| need trucks.
|
| Long haul, yes, trains _can_ be used. But there are situations
| where that is not a feasible solution.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Right, but long-haul is where batteries don't work. If we can
| get rail to every regional distribution centre (or rather,
| build regional distribution centres at rail yards) and then
| use batteries for the last hundred km, that's a win.
| athenot wrote:
| "hydrogen truck boom"
|
| I'm all for puns, but at some point we need to stop the
| association between hydrogen and explosiveness. Absent the
| perfect mix of H2 and O2, Hydrogen burns like most other fuels.
| dokem wrote:
| My understanding is that Hydrogen is not like most other fuels
| and very much does like to go boom under a much wider range of
| oxygen concentrations, rather than burn. I think it may have to
| do with how little mass the hydrogen atom has. For instance,
| gasoline volatility over diesel is because it is refined for
| shorter hydrocarbon polymers, which have less mass. Hopefully
| someone can clarify this?
| mywittyname wrote:
| Hydrogen burns until the point of stoichiometry, then, boom.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Well, at the pressures you'd have to store it at I start
| worrying about a much more conventional type of boom than the
| flame-based kind.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I like that a pressure boom is neither deflagration nor
| detonation, it's just "escape"but it's the same sound and
| effect so we use the same word.
| SigmundA wrote:
| Not the biggest Elon fan but I do believe he is right about
| Hydrogen [1].
|
| Hydrogen is not sitting around somewhere to be pumped out of the
| ground it must be split from something else like water which is
| very energy intensive.
|
| It is very low density and must be highly compressed / liquefied,
| much more energy.
|
| Even liquefied has very low energy density per volume.
|
| It is very difficult to store and transport safely in the highly
| compressed or liquified form.
|
| Might as well just charge a battery with the energy rather than
| creating hydrogen.
|
| 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFPnT-DCBVs
| skystarman wrote:
| Elon and Tesla have bet the entire farm on batteries. Something
| tells me he is not the most unbiased source here.
|
| passenger vehicles are a TOTALLY different ballgame than
| commercial long haul trucking. Even the early Tesla models
| could beat top of the line sports cars in some performance
| measures. The thing is the people who buy class 7 & 8 trucks
| work off an excel spreadsheet. They don't give a shit if the
| truck can accelerate way faster than a Cummins diesel or that
| the driver has a way better HUD or user experience than in a
| Freightliner cab. They certainly don't care very much that the
| truck is more environmentally friendly. Maybe they'll pay 10%
| more all else equal but that's not what Tesla or anyone else is
| able to provide.
|
| They only care about $/mile and unless there is some massive
| technical breakthrough, batteries ain't beating diesel any time
| in the near future on that measure.
|
| Notice the Tesla Semi has been delayed for three years now?
| jsight wrote:
| > Elon and Tesla have bet the entire farm on batteries.
| Something tells me he is not the most unbiased source here.
|
| I completely agree with you on this. Elon is not a credible
| source of arguments against Hydrogen trucks.
|
| However, I'm having a hard time finding credible arguments
| for them, at least given low prices for diesel fuel in the
| US. What is the energy usage per mile for a hydrogen truck?
| SigmundA wrote:
| So where are the hydrogen semis?
|
| $/mile hydrogen is far behind diesels and batteries at this
| point.
| skystarman wrote:
| Hydrogen is more feasible than battery for long haul as the
| technology stands now. A lot of big names in commercial
| trucking have made huge investments in it.
|
| But it's still not there yet and likely requires some giant
| gov't subsidies or some tech breakthrough. No amount of $
| makes batteries work for long haul at current tech or
| anything we see in the near future.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| This is not true. Batteries are MUCH cheaper to operate
| and we have capability to make 500 mile battery electric
| semis:
|
| https://selenianboondocks.com/2017/11/tesla-semi-part-1/
| darksaints wrote:
| The same place as all the battery semis: they don't exist
| yet. That is the whole point of this research thing that
| actual truck companies are doing.
| Pxtl wrote:
| What stands out in this is that basically: if you want to make
| synthetic fuel for higher energy-density than batteries,
| synthetic propane or methane look better.
| jabl wrote:
| If you're going for a synthetic hydrocarbon, you might as
| well go for one which is liquid at normal operating
| temperatures, which makes logistics a lot easier.
| rjmunro wrote:
| So are liquid hydrocarbons as easy to synthesise as gas
| ones? (I genuinely have no idea, just wondering)
| Robotbeat wrote:
| No. Methane is the easiest hydrocarbon fuel to
| synthesize, although the CO2 capture requires some
| energy. The others require increasing amounts of CO2 for
| the same fuel energy and also have higher energy losses
| in synthesis and combustion.
|
| Ammonia has no CO2 requirement but the hydrogen to
| ammonia energy conversion process (Haber process) is
| slightly less efficient than that for methane (Sabatier).
| dagw wrote:
| I agree with him that hydrogen won't be a viable solution for
| cars in general. However for owners of large fleets of trucks
| traveling fixed routes I can see it working in many cases.
| Heliosmaster wrote:
| I think we should invest way more in trains. They are
| basically long electric trucks that don't have to bring their
| batteries with them. All its advantages, with the
| disadvantage of being on a REALLY fixed route. We should only
| do last mile with other means of transport
| Karunamon wrote:
| Likely not realistic. Rail in the US, speaking modernly,
| tends to wind up being an expensive boondoggle even on
| fairly short routes.
| nradov wrote:
| The US has one of the best freight rail networks in the
| world. It is far from a boondoggle. There is potential to
| further expand it, and reduce carbon emissions through
| electrifying tracks.
|
| Passenger rail is a whole separate problem.
| Karunamon wrote:
| How much of that is legacy routes where the cost of
| securing rights of way, dealing with NIMBYs, etc, is long
| since sunk? It hasn't gotten any easier.
| selectodude wrote:
| There are medians in the middle of every freeway in the
| United States just begging for train tracks.
| epx wrote:
| +1. Want energy-efficient, electric-based transportation?
| Electric trains between major routes, they could even be
| autonomous, or at least don't need a meat engineer on
| cockpit. Electric small trucks to carry from hubs to final
| destinations.
| salzig wrote:
| eHighway[0] anyone?
|
| [0]: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-tests-first-ehighway-
| autobahn/...
| Hamuko wrote:
| If I need to side with someone here, I'm more inclined to side
| with the two companies that have a long history in making
| trucks vs. the person whose company has yet to made the truck
| they debuted in 2017.
| SigmundA wrote:
| There are no hydrogen trucks on the road either, time will
| tell which one is viable. Physics tells me which one will be
| more likely no need for a _argumentum ab auctoritate_.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Since when has listening to an authority on a topic been a
| bad thing? Daimler and Volvo are the two biggest truck
| companies in the world. I imagine they have a pretty good
| grasp on the market and on the engineering.
| jsight wrote:
| > Since when has listening to an authority on a topic
| been a bad thing?
|
| It isn't a bad thing, but a reasoned argument is always
| preferable to an appeal to authority. This is especially
| true when there is scant evidence of actual authority.
| dagw wrote:
| Volvo also has real electric trucks on the road and
| working today. So if anybody knows the pros and cons of
| electric trucks, its probably Volvo.
| rjmunro wrote:
| That argument doesn't always work. GM had the EV1 "on the
| road and working" in 1996. Then they decided that
| electric cars could never work. Then Tesla happened.
| zibzab wrote:
| Not true.
|
| They had a pilot program (limited to Scandinavia) some
| years ago. I think they decided to pivot from personal
| vehicles to trucks due to the lack of charging stations
| (all government funding was allocated for EV chargers back
| then, so thanks a lot Elon).
| mlatu wrote:
| I've heard one of Elon's other sidegigs deals with a buttload
| of hydrogen per launch...
| SigmundA wrote:
| SpaceX does not use hydrogen in its rocket engines.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_rocket_engines
| Robotbeat wrote:
| No, but they'll have to make a bunch of hydrogen for
| synthesizing that methane eventually. (Won't make sense
| to do that until we mostly phase out fossil fuels from
| the grid.)
| shafyy wrote:
| I don't know why you're getting downvoted, your points are
| surely valid.
| warmwaffles wrote:
| They will not be carrying the hydrogen in a compressed form.
| Most solutions are to carry the water and split the hydrogen
| and oxygen on demand. This reduces risk of explosion.
| SigmundA wrote:
| That makes no sense, it's takes much more power to split
| hydrogen from water than you get out of it. Where does the
| power come from to split the water?
| warmwaffles wrote:
| https://www.cummins.com/fuel-cells
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECNO_FFk7Hw
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fP_1Fe6sET4
| SigmundA wrote:
| Uses hydrogen (H2) not water (H2O), again H2 has to be
| split from O with energy somehow.
| warmwaffles wrote:
| I edited and added some videos on HHO systems. It's a
| demonstration of splitting the H2O on the move rather
| than carrying a gigantic tank of liquid hydrogen.
| SigmundA wrote:
| This is physically impossible perpetual motion.
| zardo wrote:
| You're describing an 'infinite energy' device. The
| Cummins link does not support your claim, no credible
| firm or engineer will claim to be able to do this.
|
| The maximum amount of energy you can get out of combining
| hydrogen and oxygen is _exactly_ the minimum energy
| required to split water into it 's components.
| vixen99 wrote:
| its components.
| exhilaration wrote:
| Do you have any links I can read about solutions like this?
| My understanding is that producing hydrogen through
| electrolysis takes more energy than it produces. How would
| you power this in mobile applications?
| zardo wrote:
| https://timecube.2enp.com/
| gruturo wrote:
| If you somehow have access (on a vehicle? On the move, even?)
| to the _massive_ amount of energy required to split water
| into Hydrogen and Oxygen, just skip the hydrogen fuel cell
| and use the energy to move the vehicle.
| EricE wrote:
| There are more ways than electricity to split water:
| https://www.wired.com/2011/05/bio-engineering-algae-to-
| make-...
| SigmundA wrote:
| How efficient are algae at making hydrogen vs a solar
| cell splitting water with electrolysis?
|
| How efficient is that vs just charging a battery with the
| solar cell?
| letitbeirie wrote:
| The other elephant in the room with hydrogen is the fact that
| using current production methods, it's a fossil fuel.
|
| Direct solar separation will be a game changer when/if that
| becomes a thing at scale, but right now almost all hydrogen
| produced for industry is made by steam reforming natural gas,
| which releases just as much CO2 as burning it. More, if you
| account for the extra steps in the process and the energy
| required to perform them.
| EricE wrote:
| Several companies have demonstrated generating copious
| amounts of hydrogen from algae - much more efficient than
| converting sunlight to electricity than performing
| electrolysis. I've seen even more alternate ways of
| generating hydrogen over the last 20 years - lots of thought
| around production; without demand it isn't worth
| pursuing/refining the processes to do so.
|
| Production can be distributed - no need to ship fuel or
| electricity over vast distances either.
|
| Charging batteries isn't without loss either.
|
| Most importantly, vehicle refueling speed is on par with
| liquid chemical energy (i.e. gas or diesel) which is the
| single biggest problem with batteries. And we haven't had EVs
| long enough to where people are needing to replace battery
| packs in volume. That's going to be fun when that day
| inevitably starts to roll around.
|
| I used to be a big hydrogen skeptic - but the more I have
| looked at it, the more I think we could deploy infrastructure
| for hydrogen faster than battery tech can improve. There
| aren't many combinations left to try, or to try to make
| practical for high volume production and that would be safe
| enough for universal adoption that will produce any
| significant gains. Maybe with liquid electrolytes - but those
| introduce new complexity/safety issues. I'm a huge fan of
| "liquid batteries" for stationary storage capacity - think
| Tesla powerwall but on an industrial neighborhood/town scale.
| nostromo wrote:
| I wouldn't consider that a decision criteria since it's also
| true for battery tech.
|
| (Most Teslas are powered by fossil fuels today via the grid,
| not renewables. 80% of US energy is still non-renewable and
| non-nuclear.)
| Robotbeat wrote:
| If by "energy" you meant "electricity" (which is the only
| thing that makes sense given context), that is incorrect.
| The US electrical grid is about 40% clean (half being
| renewable and the other nuclear). Coal is 19% and falling.
| The rest natural gas.
|
| But even on natural gas, Teslas are more efficient than
| conventional cars. This is NOT true for hydrogen. Making
| electrolytic hydrogen from existing grid energy is not
| better than a good hybrid in terms of overall efficiency.
|
| The "but electric cars still use the grid which has a lot
| of fossil fuel production" argument is actually compounded
| for hydrogen cars as they require over twice the
| electricity input to achieve the same distance traveled as
| battery electric.
| xxpor wrote:
| Is that what OP meant by fossil fuel? Fixing the source of
| electricity is (probably) a lot easier than fixing the
| source of hydrogen itself.
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