News Brief by Kip Hansen – 16 April 2022
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration there were “nearly 12.5 million commercial large trucks and buses were registered in 2016”. There are more now.
Governments around the world are considering or actually enacting laws, rules and regulations to phase out petroleum powered transportation (gasoline and diesel) and replace it with low- or no-emissions cars, trucks and buses.
Jack Ewing, writes in the New York Times about automotive business and the transition to electric vehicles. His latest article is titled:
“Truck Makers Face a Tech Dilemma: Batteries or Hydrogen?”
“Under pressure to cut emissions, truck manufacturers are choosing between batteries and hydrogen fuel cells. Wagering incorrectly could cost them billions of dollars.”
He says that the major makers of trucks, in the U.S. and Europe, have already decided that they will be required to give up the ever-dependable diesel power that they have so much experience with and shift to low emissions alternatives.
“Truck makers are divided into two camps. One faction, which includes Traton, Volkswagen’s truck unit, is betting on batteries because they are widely regarded as the most efficient option. The other camp, which includes Daimler Truck and Volvo, the two largest truck manufacturers, argues that fuel cells that convert hydrogen into electricity — emitting only water vapor — make more sense because they would allow long-haul trucks to be refueled quickly.”
Battery-powered long-haul trucks cost way more than diesel trucks – up to three times according to Ewing – but at least there is a short-haul version that one could buy. “Daimler Truck, for example, began producing an electric version of its heavy duty Actros truck, with a maximum range of 240 miles, late last year.”
Yes, producing, but they sold only 712 in 2021 worldwide, compared to 455,000 ICE trucks the same year. “Daimler has a new long-range Mercedes-Benz eActros commercial truck, which comes in at three times the price of the gas version.” [ source ]. These trucks have about a 400km or 240 mile range – it is not clear if this is an over-the-highway mileage or a more pragmatic average driving conditions mileage, such as making deliveries in London or NY City.
And hydrogen fuel cell (H2)versions? “In April (2021), Daimler began testing a prototype “GenH2” long-haul truck capable of going 600 miles between visits to the hydrogen pump. But lots of work is needed to bring down the cost of the equipment and there is not yet a network of hydrogen fueling stations or an adequate supply of hydrogen produced in a way that does not cancel out the environmental benefits.” [ source ]
Electric city buses, short-haul people-carrying vans like airport shuttles, or local delivery vans all make basic sense for batteries, as these types of vehicles return to a central depot each day where they can be recharged and maintained.
“The environmental side is hugely important but if it doesn’t make financial sense, nobody’s going to do it,” said Paul Gioupis, chief executive of Zeem, a company that is building one of the largest electric vehicle charging depots in the country about one and a half miles from Los Angeles International Airport. Zeem will recharge trucks and service and clean them for clients like hotels, tour operators and delivery companies.” [ source ]
Ewing points out that H2 trucks will be lighter and can be fueled (once there are fueling stations) in a similar manner to diesel trucks.
One of these two technologies may come out a big winner or the two technologies may share the market. Only time will tell.
The winner of the technology battle will rule the future truck market, worth billions. . . Winning billions or losing billions if one manufacturer picks the losing technology.
These mega-corporations have already poured in millions of research dollars and euros and set their best brains to try to outguess the future.
Which tech do you think will come out on top?
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Author’s Comment:
I have an unsettled, not-yet-formed opinion. Battery power seems to have the edge in the present moment. Batteries are available and becoming better. Electricity for charging is already well distributed along major trucking routes and ubiquitous even in the less populated areas.
H2 is tricky to deal with – it sneaks out of containers and pipes and in the end, can be explosive. A leak can act as a FAE, a fuel air explosive. Anyone with a bit of chemistry background can make enough H2 at home to be dangerous (ask me, I had my three boys in home school). That said, it does burn cleanly producing only energy and H2O.
I don’t think I would want to drive a vehicle on the existing U.S. highways with a tank full of pure hydrogen strapped under the seat.
Yes, I know, gasoline is dangerous too….but not quite in the same way. Maybe it’s just me.
Thanks for reading.
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I am including the link to DeSmog BOG once again cheering the idiots who are actually undermining the production of the electricity needed to charge the kazillions of new electric vehicles. Here is the excerpt from Brendan DeMelle’s latest CAGW Alarmist email blast.
They sure use a lot plastics in their protests!
Their “chain” was pathetic. It’s a good thing the police there aren’t sadistic. Application of a little pepper spray would be a sight to behold.
TEWS ==> Gads, activism today is writ small small small.
In the late 60s, a protest of less than a few thousand was not even reportable for the tiny college radio station for which I did reporting.
Use a battery powered angle grinder to cut the tube?
…and lead the person who will be cutting it over to the protester wearing dark glasses and tapping with a white cane and shaking with the DTs.
“fuel cells that convert hydrogen into electricity — emitting only water vapor”
Since water vapor IS the main greenhouse gas, adding more kind of defeats the purpose of combating “global warming”.
Tom ==> Yeah, but atmospheric H2O is self regulating, too much and it rains….
With petrol of any kind one only needs to bring the fuel, as the air is free, but with a battery ALL the energy must be brought and stored in the battery, no free oxygen is used, there is the main problem.
https://energypost.eu/hydrogen-fuel-cell-cars-competitive-hydrogen-fuel-cell-expert/
Michael ==> Thanks for the link.
H2 is a non-starter and I shudder to think how much of a class 1 HGV (“18 wheeler”) max road weight 44 Metric tons would have to be used as battery to give the necessary torque and range…
Hydrogen is better used to hydrocrack heavy oils to make more diesel or desulpherize diesel. Batteries are not going to do squat for a loaded truck weighting 60,000 lbs.
Maybe the final delivery vehicles could be battery though.
Neither is practical for trucking. Both are equally unsuitable (albeit for different reasons). Who knows when H2 will ever be practical, much less economically feasible? Possibly never.
“One of these two technologies may come out a big winner or the two technologies may share the market.”
Neither. They both suck. For long haul OTR, they are wildly expensive and energy inefficient.
For long haul, the only non diesel technology that makes any sense is electrified railroads.
For urban mass transit, electric buses powered by overhead trolleys. This is technology that was widely used in the 1930s and 40s. They are still being used in San Francisco.
I do not know which will win the false contest between fuel cells and batteries, but I do know who the losers are. They are we consumers and taxpayers who will be impoverished to play act the fantasies of our overlords.
Walter ==> The requirement to replace current long0-haul trucks is that they must be able to drive to the huge warehouses and transfer points. Trains can’t just go anywhere. The sea-container rail to truck system is already in use. Boats haul the containers to port, containers are stacked on trains, delivered to train yards around the country, containers put in truck beds and delivered to warehouses or direct to grocery store.
IMHO, Walter is right about electric railroads for long haul shipping. This would leave trucks used for drayage between the rail/truck intermodal terminals and the initial shipper or final receiver.
The killer for freight electrification in the US has been the high capital cost of the traction power supply system, which would almost certainly be overhead wires (Catenary). For urban areas, at least half the cost of installing overhead wires is in providing adequate overhead clearance (almost always a road/highway overpass). Along with the capital costs, there is also a chance of increased property tax.
Another problem is electric supply – railroad electrification relies on a reliable source of electric power.
Erik ==> We already do trains for long-haul. The train that passes a block from my house carries endless cars stacked two-high with 40 and 53 foot intermodal sea containers and hi-cubes.
The only change would be to electric.
Kip, the minimum long haul distance for intermodal by rail is now typically greater than 500 miles in the U.S., with the exception of Florida (a lot more freight goes to Miami than comes from it and truckers don’t want to haul empties). Going “all-electric” for freight would reduce the minimum long-haul distance favoring rail down to 200 to 300 miles.
Some recent changes that may make railroad electrification a bit easier is greatly improved battery technology, which would allow for gaps in the electrified trackage (no need for extra clearance under bridges). Equally important is advancements in power electronics that allow efficient operation off of constant voltage batteries.
All this assumes that we need to end the use of diesel fuel for transportation and I’m dubious about the necessity. There may be reasons for diesel alternatives in areas with high air pollution. An example was the Southern California Regional Rail Authority held a series of meeting about electrifying freight railroad operations in the L.A. air basin circa 1991-92. The idea was dropped when the price tag reached $4B, half of which was raising clearances from road overpasses.
Erik ==> I agree, I don’t know how much “pollution” or CO2 emissions comes from rail. I think that even if it was a good idea, the cost would exceed any possible advantage.
Kip, in 1991 the pollution of concern was NOx and particulates, both of which have been reduced with the Tier 3 and tier 4 emissions limits. There have been tests of using CNG with spark ignited versions of locomotive engines for switching in the L.A. air basin.
Erik ==> I was born and reiased in LA – lived through the 50s and 60s. I know what real smog is…and it ain’t there now.
A whole lot of rail infrastructure was torn up and even the intermodal transfer yards are maxed out. Who’s gonna pay to lay all the new track required and the new yards?
You are sucker.They aren’t going to pay for anything. You are going to pay for everything. Their real agenda is to impoverish, humiliate, and demoralize you and everyone like you. They won’t be happy until you taste the lash.
H2 with on-demand generation. All you need is electricity and water – something pretty much every gas station already has.
Refueling may take a bit longer, but still well short of the 50X longer duration to recharge large batteries.
Or you could add some C atoms to the H2 and have a better, much safer fuel. We could call it gas….
Gas stations don’t have nearly enough electrical power to make H2 out of water to produce the same amount of energy they deliver now in their fuel. The entire nation would have to be rewired, and there still wouldn’t be enough generator capacity to produce it (unless we quadrupled our number of coal fired power plants to produce it).
Tom ==> The idea is to have huge tanks of hydrogen at the fueling stations, like giant propane tanks.
The entire nation ( more or less ) has to be rewired for an All-Electric Nation — EVs and all electric homes and offices.
No more than needed for EV charging – probably less, to be honest… You can make H2 24/7, and store some. Don’t have to produce all when there’s a truck present.
Shanghai Dan,
I don’t know if you are aware, but hydrogen burns invisibly, or nearly so. Given that hydrogen is harder to contain in storage tanks and pipelines, I for one would like to be able to see the fuel burning if and when it escapes and catches fire. How about you?
One of the plausible explanations for the Hindenburg blimp disaster in 1937 is believed to have been escaping hydrogen from the ship which was ignited by static electricity sparks on the outside of the ship. Boom! The video of it is on YouTube.
I spent a few years in electric generating plants, all of which used H2 to cool the generators. I’ve seen an H2 fire at a storage tank and the results of at least one H2 explosion. H2 not only burns cleanly, it explodes quite cleanly, leaving very clean debris laying around. In one case it put a large generating unit out of service for months. Since I’m an old guy, I probably won’t be around to see the reports of 18-wheeler Li-ion fires or H2 explosions on the nation’s highways, but I’m sure they’ll be spectacular.
Robert ==> Thanks for sharing your story — great!
Shanghai and CD ==> Yep, didn’t your high school science teacher make a test tube of hydrogen with electrolysis and then use a match to a ignite a “pop”? No flame.
My son, then 12, blew up a six foot diameter balloon full of hydrogen 100 feet above our neighborhood after dark with exciting effect!
Besides the below mentioned need for station rewiring for a lot more capacity (if available) to electrolyze hydrogen, the cost to do so would be prohibitive. Takes about 5 to 7 X more energy to extract hydrogen from water than it produces. Nice chemistry class experiment, but not too practical in production
Slowroll ==> The nutty plan is to generally produce hydrogen by electrolysis using solar someplace like North Africa and shipping the hydrogen around like CNG.
No intention of producing hydrogen at point of sale.
H2 is just a storage medium. It’s not an energy source. You can either be wasteful with power, do H2, and save time – or you can save SOME power, do EVs, and waste a lot of time.
Either of these options are ridiculous solutions to a non-problem. But as an fyi to commieBob and the rest of you-all. Ammonia is already produced in large quantities for fertilizer. Those big white tanks at the farm coop labeled Anhydrous Ammonia are what you are talking about. In this case Google is your friend, for pictures and background information. As a teenager, I was on the tractor pulling that rig around the field squirting the stuff into the ground. Just make sure the valves are shut and you are up-wind when disconnecting hoses. It is not handled much differently than liquified propane. I also drove a propane tractor on occasion.
What fun.
Yep. A big advantage for ammonia is that it is very commonly used and there is a sizeable infrastructure devoted to it. There is also history.
The X-15 rocket plane was powered by ammonia. Unsurprisingly, there are modern proposals to use ammonia as jet fuel. link
Also, there’s a long history of using ammonia as a motor fuel.
I hasten to point out that ammonia, and every other alternative fuel, is not as good as fossil fuels.
I recall a segment of “Who Killed the Electric Car” (2006) detailing how the California Air Resources Board (CARB) scrapped support of EVs because hydrogen vehicles were just around the corner. Bureaucrats have terrible track records picking winners and losers. Yet governments are still in that business. When will we learn?
Never?
Progressives are goldfish, 9 seconds of memory
“Truck Makers Face a Tech Dilemma: Batteries or Hydrogen?”
As an engineer, the dilemma is much broader than NYT thinks. They are asking each company to to do a feasibility study essentially at full scale. I’ve managed a number of mining feasibility studies (actually in rare metals like Li, rare earths, etc. for which I have hydrometallurgical production patents) and they go through scoping, prefeasibility and bankable feasibility. Following that is the design phase where some more issues arise requiring new testing to resolve.
AND the entire renewable energy system that the trucks will use,has gone through $-several trillion prefeasibility at scale and still isnt working.The route of adding on patches that still aren’t near satisfactory to shore up an as yet failed tech is a huge no-no to an experienced engineer. Remember that conception of this new electrical system came from activist/politico/U. Professors, not Fluor Corp or it’s like. No feasibility study has ever been done.
It is however, typical leftard policy making about technical issues by art or poly-sci majors.
Sure all the politically-connected woke corporations are paying lip service to Green lunacy, but in the end, diesel will continue to rule. At a minimum using biodiesel.
Yeah, I’m going to go ahead and choose door #3.
What effin emissions? CO2 is plant food.
Beta vs VHS? 8 track vs cassette?
Trivial examples, but it shows that a superior alternative can show up if you can sit on the sidelines for a bit.
Imo ==> Exactly — what if someone comes up with a REAL battery? High density energy storage, fast in, fast out, low weight?
Which is about as likely as switching to teams of unicorns fed by munching magic beans.
Rich ==> When I was sitting in front of a B&W TV screen watching the first Moon landing, the idea that I would be communicating simultaneously with 10,000 or so total strangers by typing on a little keyboard in my lap was “about as likely as switching to teams of unicorns fed by munching magic beans.”
Marketing ability and government regulations often chose an inferior product as the winner.
Andy ==> At lest as a market place winner…..
Evidence- vacuum fluorescent bulb, twisty nightmares
This comparison of costs of EVs vs ICE vehicles needs to go viral.
TEWS ==> Thanks for the link and chart!
Just another shoot – ready – aim from the ecoloons. Deadlines to produce results with no real methods of achieving the goals available. This too will be kicked down the road forever. Virtue signaling only works in a virtual world.
Batteries over hydrogen….but bio or synthetic diesel fuel over them both….
DMac ==> Why synthetic? Why bio? There’s plenty of oil (in reality), why not just use that? Rhetorical question.
If e could fit 400 miles-equivalent of battery power in the space the size to tanks for 200 gallons of diesel, with batteries that would charge in an hour (enough time to pee, shower, and eat dinner) at a Truck Stop of America, we’d be set.
Kip,
I have no idea what the timetable(s) are for phasing out ICE trucks, but if I were a manufacturer, I wouldn’t be willing to lift a finger to comply, other than issuing the occasional eco-puff piece. Unless some alternative can be shown to be practical or economic, I’d be willing to bet that these arbitrary eco-deadlines will prove to be highly elastic, and, in fact, will disappear altogether once enough people catch on that their liberties and standard of living are increasingly at risk to the eco-nutters
Yes.
This article is a blatant example of the classic fallacy: FALSE DICHOTOMY.
As others have pointed out already, the answer is: neither.
The most effective, efficient, technology is: INTERNAL COMBUSTION (diesel or gas).
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Re: “I have an unsettled, not-yet-formed opinion.”
Disgusting. You are trying to hide (and doing a poor job of it, by the way) the fact that you are for grabbing market share by fiat and will go whichever way the taxpayer subsidy wind blows.
Janice ==> Thanks for stopping by. The dichotomy is for the sake of discussion prompted by the original news article. This is, after all, a News Brief (as stated clearly in the byline).
I’m not quite sure what you think I might be hiding or how I might be “for grabbing market share by fiat” — I don’t have a dog in this fight.
Whichever way the markets blows, it won’t do so for many years and by then I will have joined my ancestors.
I do hope that you are right and that the mania for “all things green” won’t for suicidal decisions on the people of the world, but…California all over.
I beg your pardon, Mr. Hansen. I was aiming my sharp criticism at the original news article’s author. I completely failed to make that clear.
Please, forgive me.
Janice Who Is Very Sorry 😔
Janice ==> No worries. If my skin was any thicker (after writing here for a decade) I’d be like an elephant! Always glad to hear from you.
Thank you!
Frank ==> Of course, replace 13 million trucks is not going to happen overnight, or even this decade.
But part of the supply chain problem, and the problem of ports overcrowded with undelivered sea containers is/was California’s banning trucks older than some arbitrary age. See
https://realtruckmaster.blog/2021/10/14/california-nightmare-for-truckers/
You describe a problem created by government fiat. And of course these people can only see a solution in more government fiat
I’m just a wee bit confused on this H2 argument. They want to get rid of fossil fuel ICEs because of the green house gas emissions, and replace them with an H2 ICE that emits an even stronger green house gas. I must be missing something here–not that I’m against more water in the atmosphere.
John ==> You have to day that with a /sarc tag.
Atmospheric H2O won’t be changed a bit — plenty of water on this 2/3 Water World.
Good post Kip. I suspect that diesel and gasoline ICE will be around for a very long time.
Andy ==> Well, gosh, me too! (Can a man say that?)
13 million over the road trucks will not be retired anytime soon — nor will 13 million replacement, or whatever alternative fuel source, be pumped out of dreamland.
Over 1.4 billion ICEVs in the world today compared to 16m EVs. IEA expects about 70m EVs by 2040 Even if they are out by a factor of 10 (unlikely) there will still be twice as many ICEVs as EVs then.
And that doesn’t take into account any growth of ICEVs over the next 18 years.
So, future supply chain crises are a good thing?
Future supply chain crises are already on the horizon. IEA foresees potential shortages of lithium and cobalt as early as 2025.
My prediction re: “Wagering incorrectly could cost them billions of dollars.” Wagering on either of these “solutions” will cost them billions. My bet is that the entire EV market will collapse in the next 10 years leaving only a small number of EVs around for a variety of reasons.
There is an “alternative” fuel that has environmental advantages over diesel. Di methyl ether (DME):
More info in the videos below
https://youtu.be/wJIretzSryo
https://youtu.be/n3LiV9vviw8
Kip, let me tell you a story.
My next door neighbour has an oldish Range River and it needed its yearly government-mandated safety check, the MOT. He drove it to the testing station and left it. When he came back the mechanic was very apologetic – the emission testing equipment had failed and was reading zero particulates and zero NOX.
So he booked it in later that week. When he got there he was at the back of the queue and it wouldn’t be checked until much later. It passed, NOX and particulates both highish but within limits. Talking to the mechanic he found out that the testing equipment had been checked and recalibrated but there was nothing wrong.
When a CNG conversion car starts it uses petrol until it has fully warmed up, then switches to the compressed natural gas. The first time it was tested it was warmed up so was running on the CNG. The second time it was cold. The mechanic was not pleased.
The moral? Forget ammonia, hydrogen, ethyl alcohol. Is clean, low carbon natural gas.
JF
Rover dammit!
Julian ==> Your neighbor’s car is a CNG converted Range River?
In Coney Weston we go with the flow.
JF
Julian ==> Maybe I’ll fly over and attend your Annual Village Meeting.
Readers: Don’t forget to mark your calendars: Thu, Apr. 21, 2022 7:00pm