Hydrogen Fleets Are A lot Extra Costly To Keep Than Battery & Even Diesel

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One of many attention-grabbing issues I’ve been doing is collaborating in a evaluation group for a European research on heavy automobile decarbonization comparisons and simulations. Which means, amongst different issues, that I’m poking on the assumptions getting used.

Because the paper is in evaluation and assumptions are being examined and improved, I gained’t determine the creator or group presently. This isn’t about them being incorrect or proper, however a few bunch of assumptions being made about gasoline cell heavy automobile upkeep that don’t stand as much as scrutiny, but are in lots of research which might be thought of credible.

Let’s begin with first ideas. A heavy responsibility gasoline cell automobile like a freight truck or transit bus is a battery electrical automobile with added gasoline cell drive prepare parts. That signifies that the battery energy prepare has batteries, an electrical energy charging system with no shifting components besides the flap over the plug, an influence administration unit to maneuver electrical energy throughout wires to the motor, and a motor. There are sensors, computerized controls and the like, however only a few shifting components and little or no that requires a lot upkeep. That’s born out by upkeep research of pure battery electrical autos.

A gasoline cell automobile is a battery hydrogen hybrid automobile. It provides a classy 700 ambiance hydrogen tank or an much more refined liquid hydrogen tank with strain sensor and aid techniques, a fancy hydrogen gasoline motion system which has to cope with very giant strain modifications within the case of the pressurized tanks or very giant quantity and therefore strain modifications as liquid hydrogen is warmed to gaseous kind, very giant thermal administration challenges and therefore thermal administration sensors, actuators and parts in each instances, an costly and life-limited gasoline cell which requires pure hydrogen and and clear air, an air consumption and filtering system consequently and an exhaust system for shifting the resultant water from the gasoline cell out of the automobile with out freezing therefore a heating resolution.

This diagram of simply the air administration course of, which isn’t required for battery electrical autos keep in mind, ought to make it clear {that a} gasoline cell automobile’s added parts are non-trivial. There are a lot of extra factors of potential failure and plenty of extra issues that require scheduled upkeep.

The closest instance is hybrid electrical autos. The info from mild autos exhibits that upkeep on the drive prepare prices much more on hybrid autos than on pure battery electrical autos, about the identical as inside combustion autos.

One of many issues I criticized the Worldwide Council on Clear Transportation’s deeply flawed trucking research about final 12 months was that they’d important upkeep price enhancements for hydrogen drive prepare vans and none for battery electrical vans. In reality, they assumed that heavy responsibility, long-range vans — the one phase the place some organizations nonetheless maintain out hope for gasoline cells — would have very related upkeep prices to battery electrical after 2030, and equal upkeep prices to diesel vans instantly.

The numbers are all in euros per 100 kilometers.

Once I first reviewed it, I used to be scratching my head about giving the advantage of the doubt to maturation of hydrogen gasoline cell vans vs battery electrical vans. In any case, gasoline cell buses have been working all over the world in trials since 2000, and gasoline cell fork lifts for longer. Battery electrical vans and buses are comparatively new.

However now I’m scratching my head about why everybody believes hydrogen gasoline cell heavy autos will likely be low upkeep in any respect.

I’ve been gathering anecdotal information about upkeep prices. The Pau, France fleet operator made it clear after they ditched the hydrogen buses in 2023 after 4 years of operation that they’d been very excessive upkeep, and that protecting them operating was a relentless problem.

“The manufacturing station has extra issues than anticipated and the buses have a number of very small breakdowns. As for me, I spend three quarters of my days there though it’s only one in all 17 traces!”

Equally, the Whistler, BC expertise from a decade earlier discovered double the upkeep prices, per Ballard itself.

In line with Burnaby’s Ballard Energy Techniques, which manufactures gasoline cell engines, Whistler’s hydrogen buses price $1.34 per kilometre to keep up, versus 65 cents per kilometre for diesel-powered buses.

Two bus operators, separated by a decade and an ocean, each had an identical experiences with buses from totally different producers. However nonetheless, anecdotal. If that was all the info, I’d write it off to a few dangerous experiences.

However when a rail OEM gross sales government for Stadler in Germany has this to say about his personal merchandise, I believed one thing was up.

“As well as, hydrogen gasoline cells require considerably extra upkeep than a batteries alone, requiring alternative inside three years on common.

“Due to this and the hydrogen tank on board, the upkeep effort is after all extra advanced in comparison with battery trains,” Obst defined, including that hydrogen trains additionally require a battery for back-up energy.”

Because of this, once I noticed very low upkeep prices assumptions within the research I’m reviewing, I supplied this materials and advised that assumptions of virtually an identical upkeep prices was inappropriate. The lead researcher pointed on the supply, so I went to that. It was a German working group research, in the identical effort because the research I assessed a few months in the past.

The research, translated due to a really useful on-line webpage which goes to be sending me pleading emails to provide them cash ceaselessly now, was the 2020 Workshop Report Altering the Drive of Industrial Autos: Methods to Decarbonize Extra Tough Vans with a Deal with Electrification from the German Nationwide Platform: The way forward for Mobility effort.

I dove into that anticipating to discover a reference to research and empirical information. What I discovered was that three researchers from two establishments — Wolfgang Schade of M-5 and Patrick Fieltsch and Heike Flamig of the Technical College of Hamburg had supplied upkeep assertions with out reference or citations. There was nothing within the bibliography that may clarify them both. I couldn’t discover another research in German that may have been the supply, however Googling in German isn’t my prime ability, so I’ll have missed one thing.

So we’ve got ICCT, M-5 and TUHH all asserting what look like low numbers for upkeep and to this point no information or research backing them up.

I went again to the ICCT TCO research to have a look at their upkeep numbers, and it cites one other 2023 publication by the lead creator, so I went to have a look at that research. It factors to a College of California, Davis paper from 2022 by Wang et al, Estimating Upkeep and Restore Prices for Battery Electrical and Gasoline Cell Heavy Obligation Vans.

Does it have information? No, no it doesn’t. It lists the stories it drew on, said clearly that there was no information to attract on and that everybody was assuming that gasoline cell vans could be about the identical as battery electrical vans or perhaps a bit dearer.

To this point I’m half a dozen stories in on two continents in two languages and haven’t discovered something besides guess work. However I’ve two quotes from bus fleet operators, a automobile sort that’s strongly adjoining and much like heavy responsibility vans with a excessive responsibility cycle, a decade aside making it clear that they very excessive upkeep prices and a quote from a prepare OEM government who makes it clear that his gasoline cell product’s upkeep prices are a lot increased as effectively. In reality, he says nobody would purchase it until the request for proposal explicitly referred to as for hydrogen trains and nothing else.

This led me to go and take a look at gasoline cell bus upkeep information, with the hope that regardless of the entire failures which have been swept beneath the carpet within the 25 years that hydrogen buses have been trialed and deserted in dozens of locations all over the world, somebody would have really captured some information.

And lo, California got here by means of. As all the time with the USA, they publish every little thing about themselves, making information accessible for analysts like me to attempt to extrapolate to locations with vastly decrease budgets or any sense that everybody will care about them.

I discovered three research of bus fleets in three totally different transit organizations in California,

This US OSTI research of a fleet of ten gasoline cell buses in Oakland, California for the complete 12 months of 2020 discovered that the common upkeep for distance traveled was a lot increased than the upkeep prices for diesel buses, about 59 cents per mile vs 35 cents per mile. By the way, that was very near the hybrid battery diesel fleet, which was at 62 cents.

This research from Southern California by NREL of of 10 gasoline cell buses for 16 months discovered prices per distance traveled decrease than the OSTI research at 42 cents per mile, however nonetheless increased than the 35 cents per mile diesel baseline. Notably, propulsion associated upkeep was 37.3% of the entire.

This NREL research masking six years of upkeep for gasoline cell buses in Riverside County, the long-running Sunline County, Coachella adjoining metropolis, discovered upkeep prices had been 2.5 occasions increased for the gasoline cell fleet than the older CNG fleet for the interval, 56 cents per mile or very near the primary research.

A bit extra looking discovered no different empirical information accessible in English on upkeep prices. I checked out a few hydrogen forklist papers however they didn’t escape upkeep or different prices in a helpful approach. As a be aware, virtually the entire roughly 50,000 hydrogen forklifts are within the USA in distribution facilities that acquired lots of US DOE cash for hydrogen refueling stations and preliminary forklift buy. And as one other be aware, 1.2 million battery electrical forklifts had been bought globally in 2022 alone.

So now the info set is the next:

• Bus fleet research from California totaling over eight years between three fleets discovered a lot increased upkeep prices than for a diesel baseline.
• Revealed articles with quotes from Whistler, BC and Pau, France fleet operators make it clear that upkeep prices for his or her bus fleets, each the 14 12 months outdated Whistler expertise and the one-year outdated Pau expertise had been very excessive. A decade with zero motion shouldn’t be indicative of a maturing trade.
• The Stadler government on file as saying that upkeep prices are a lot increased for his or her model new trains.

To me what seems to be clear is that there are a bunch of transportation researchers who’re all guessing primarily based on actually no proof that clearly extra advanced and failure inclined hydrogen vans will likely be about the identical as a lot easier battery electrical vans, or perhaps a bit dearer. Additional, they’re all assuming that they are going to be less expensive to keep up than diesel vans, the place not less than they’ve the transmission system to level to.

None of them seem to have gone to have a look at upkeep information for intently adjoining hydrogen buses the place there’s a 25 12 months historical past, or checked out rail operator statements, though that quote was pretty latest. None of them seem to have gone to OEMs which have run trials of hydrogen vans and requested about upkeep experiences. None of them seem to have seen the $100,000+ gasoline cell alternative cost a Hyundai automotive proprietor had and began asking questions.

As a reminder, nearly all of those buses have Ballard gasoline cells in them, expertise that Ballard has been promoting globally for over 25 years, with losses of $1.3 billion since 2000. This isn’t an immature expertise, it simply fails to commercialize at scale after each single trial.

Like the idea of low cost inexperienced hydrogen, the idea of low-maintenance gasoline cell vans doesn’t stand as much as the slightest of scrutiny. Street freight researchers within the 2010s made some baseless and low-ball assumptions and within the 2020s these assumptions are thought of legitimate as a result of they’ve been cited so typically.