FRANKFURT, Germany – Germany’s Daimler Truck AG and Sweden’s Volvo Group say they jointly plan to manufacture hydrogen fuel cells for trucks in Europe starting in 2025, and called on EU policymakers to boost incentives for climate-neutral technologies.
The two companies said on Thursday that their joint fuel cell project, called Cellcentric, is carrying out preparatory work at a facility in Esslingen, Germany, and that a decision on a full-scale production location will be announced in 2022. Daimler Truck and Volvo said they and the company plan to begin customer testing of electric trucks that… Fuel cell powered within about three years, launching full-scale production by the end of the decade.
The companies have urged European policymakers to add incentives, including carbon taxes and emissions trading, to compensate for the fact that climate-neutral trucks will be more expensive. They supported calls to build 300 high-performance hydrogen refueling stations for heavy vehicles by 2025 and 1,000 stations by 2030.
European governments are seeking to reduce carbon dioxide emissions across their economies under the 2015 Paris Climate Accords, which aim to limit global warming and climate change. Carbon dioxide, a product of internal combustion engines among other things, is the main gas that scientists blame for climate change.
Efforts to reduce emissions from passenger cars in Europe have focused on the introduction of large numbers of battery-only electric vehicles. According to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, there were only 2,018 fuel cell vehicles on European roads in 2019.
However, Daimler and Volvo said that although the batteries will work in short-haul trucks, they see hydrogen fuel cells playing a key role in heavier loads and longer distances.
In a fuel cell, hydrogen and oxygen combine to produce electricity, heat, and water. There are no carbon dioxide emissions or smog-producing pollutants. Hydrogen can have advantages over batteries in terms of refueling time, weight and range, but refueling bays are expensive to build and currently few and far between.
The two companies said that they will remain competitors in developing new truck models even as they cooperate in producing the fuel cells that will provide them with energy.
Daimler Truck, maker of the Freightliner and Western Star brands, is set to be separated later this year from Stuttgart-based Daimler AG, which makes luxury Mercedes-Benz vehicles.
