Carmakers have been promising to scrap the internal combustion
engine, and now it is the truck-makers’ turn. But the makers of giant
18-wheelers are taking a different route.
اضافة اعلان
Daimler, the world’s largest maker of heavy trucks, whose
Freightliners are a familiar sight on
US interstates, said last week that it
would convert to zero-emission vehicles within 15 years at the latest,
providing another example of how the shift to electric power is reshaping
vehicle manufacturing with significant implications for the climate, economic
growth and jobs.
The journey away from fossil fuels will play out differently and
take longer in the trucking industry than it will for passenger cars. For one
thing, zero-emission long-haul trucks are not yet available in large numbers.
And different technology may be needed to power the electric
motors. Batteries work well for delivery vehicles and other short-haul trucks,
which are already on the roads in significant numbers. But Daimler argues that
battery power is not ideal for long-haul 18-wheelers, at least with current
technology. The weight of the batteries alone subtracts too much from payload,
an important consideration for cost-conscious trucking companies.
Instead, Daimler and some rivals are betting on fuel cells that
generate electricity from hydrogen. Fuel cells produce no tailpipe emissions,
and hydrogen fuel tanks can be refilled as fast as diesel tanks — a distinct
advantage compared with batteries, which typically take at least twice as long
to recharge.
In April, Daimler began testing a prototype “GenH2” long-haul
truck capable of going 966km between visits to the hydrogen pump. But a lot 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.
Last week, Daimler provided details of how it plans to solve
these problems, with the goal of selling hydrogen-fueled long-haul trucks by
2027 that will be cheaper to buy and operate than diesel models.
During an online presentation Thursday, Daimler executives
announced a partnership with Shell to build a “hydrogen corridor” of fueling
stations spanning northern Europe. For shorter-haul trucks, Daimler announced a
partnership with the Chinese company Contemporary Amperex Technology (
CATL) to
develop batteries, as well as partnerships with Siemens and other companies to
install high-voltage charging stations in
Europe and the United States.
In March, Daimler and Volvo Trucks, which are usually intense
rivals, formed a joint venture to develop fuel-cell systems that will convert
hydrogen to electricity to power long-distance trucks. The message is that the
energy transition is too big even for a company the size of Daimler, with
revenue last year of 154 billion euros, or $188 billion, to manage on its own.
Daimler has been working on hydrogen fuel-cell technology for
decades, but the technology is not yet cheap enough or rugged enough for
commercial use.
“The fuel cells out there today are not at all fulfilling the
demands that we have coming from our customers,” Lars Stenqvist, chief
technology officer of Volvo Trucks (which is a separate company from Volvo
Cars), said in an interview from company headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden. “That’s
one reason to join forces with Daimler, in order to share that development
burden.”
Daimler, based in Stuttgart, Germany, is planning this year to
split its truck-making and bus-making operations from the division that makes
Mercedes-Benz cars, forming a separate company with its own stock market
listing. The spinoff of Daimler Truck, announced in February, is a momentous
event for the company, which traces its roots to the inventors of the
automobile and was once a sprawling conglomerate that manufactured airplanes and
trains as well as autos.
One motivation for the amicable divorce is to give the truck
unit more freedom to react to technological change while raising money from
investors to help finance the enormous cost of developing emission-free
long-haul vehicles.
“Independent management and governance will allow them to
operate even faster,” Daimler CEO Ola Källenius said Thursday.
Daimler managers concede that some portions of its truck
business are ailing. In the United States, Freightliner, which Daimler acquired
in 1981, is the top-selling brand of heavy truck, with more than a third of the
market. But in Europe, Mercedes-Benz trucks have lost market share and score
behind rivals in customer-satisfaction surveys.
Karin Radstrom, hired this year from rival Scania to fix the
Daimler Truck business in Europe and Latin America, said the company put too
much energy into fancy engineering for which customers weren’t willing to pay.
“To some extent, we lost touch with our customers,” Radstrom
said during the presentation Thursday.
Daimler says its aim is to make battery-powered short-haul
trucks that can compete on cost with diesel by 2025 and long-haul fuel-cell
trucks that achieve diesel parity by 2027.
“In that very moment when the customer starts benefiting more
from a zero-emission truck than a diesel truck, well, there’s no reason to buy
a diesel truck anymore,” Andreas Gorbach, chief technology officer for Daimler’s
trucks and buses division, said during Thursday’s presentation. “This is the
tipping point.”
Read more
Business
.jpg)
.jpg)
