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

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One of many fascinating issues I’ve been doing is taking part in a overview group for a European examine on heavy automobile decarbonization comparisons and simulations. Meaning, amongst different issues, that I’m poking on the assumptions getting used.

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

Let’s begin with first rules. A heavy responsibility gas cell automobile like a freight truck or transit bus is a battery electrical automobile with added gas cell drive practice parts. That implies that the battery energy practice has batteries, an electrical energy charging system with no shifting elements 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 elements and little or no that requires a lot upkeep. That’s born out by upkeep research of pure battery electrical autos.

A gas cell automobile is a battery hydrogen hybrid automobile. It provides a classy 700 environment hydrogen tank or an much more subtle liquid hydrogen tank with strain sensor and reduction programs, a posh hydrogen gas motion system which has to take care of very massive strain modifications within the case of the pressurized tanks or very massive quantity and therefore strain modifications as liquid hydrogen is warmed to gaseous kind, very massive thermal administration challenges and therefore thermal administration sensors, actuators and parts in each instances, an costly and life-limited gas cell which requires pure hydrogen and and clear air, an air consumption and filtering system in consequence and an exhaust system for shifting the resultant water from the gas cell out of the automobile with out freezing therefore a heating answer.

This diagram of simply the air administration course of, which isn’t required for battery electrical autos bear in mind, ought to make it clear {that a} gas cell automobile’s added parts are non-trivial. There are lots 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 gentle autos reveals that upkeep on the drive practice prices much more on hybrid autos than on pure battery electrical autos, about the identical as inner combustion autos.

One of many issues I criticized the Worldwide Council on Clear Transportation’s deeply flawed trucking examine about final 12 months was that that they had vital upkeep value enhancements for hydrogen drive practice vehicles and none for battery electrical vehicles. The truth is, they assumed that heavy responsibility, long-range vehicles — the one phase the place some organizations nonetheless maintain out hope for gas cells — would have very comparable upkeep prices to battery electrical after 2030, and equal upkeep prices to diesel vehicles instantly.

The numbers are all in euros per 100 kilometers.

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

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

I’ve been amassing anecdotal knowledge about upkeep prices. The Pau, France fleet operator made it clear once they ditched the hydrogen buses in 2023 after 4 years of operation that that they had been very excessive upkeep, and that maintaining them working 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 is just one in every of 17 strains!”

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

In response to Burnaby’s Ballard Energy Techniques, which manufactures gas cell engines, Whistler’s hydrogen buses value $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 similar experiences with buses from totally different producers. However nonetheless, anecdotal. If that was all the information, I’d write it off to a few unhealthy 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 gas cells require considerably extra upkeep than a batteries alone, requiring substitute inside three years on common.

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

In consequence, after I noticed very low upkeep prices assumptions within the examine I’m reviewing, I offered this materials and steered that assumptions of virtually similar upkeep prices was inappropriate. The lead researcher pointed on the supply, so I went to that. It was a German working group examine, in the identical effort because the examine I assessed a few months in the past.

The examine, translated due to a really useful on-line webpage which goes to be sending me pleading emails to offer them cash ceaselessly now, was the 2020 Workshop Report Altering the Drive of Business Automobiles: Methods to Decarbonize Extra Troublesome Vans with a Give attention to 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 knowledge. 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 offered upkeep assertions with out reference or citations. There was nothing within the bibliography which may clarify them both. I couldn’t discover every other research in German which may have been the supply, however Googling in German isn’t my prime ability, so I could have missed one thing.

So we’ve ICCT, M-5 and TUHH all asserting what look like low numbers for upkeep and thus far no knowledge or research backing them up.

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

Does it have knowledge? No, no it doesn’t. It lists the reviews it drew on, acknowledged clearly that there was no knowledge to attract on and that everybody was assuming that gas cell vehicles can be about the identical as battery electrical vehicles or perhaps a bit dearer.

Thus far I’m half a dozen reviews 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 kind that’s strongly adjoining and just like heavy responsibility vehicles with a excessive responsibility cycle, a decade aside making it clear that they very excessive upkeep prices and a quote from a practice OEM government who makes it clear that his gas cell product’s upkeep prices are a lot greater as nicely. The truth is, he says nobody would purchase it until the request for proposal explicitly known as for hydrogen trains and nothing else.

This led me to go and have a look at gas cell bus upkeep knowledge, with the hope that regardless of the entire failures which have been swept underneath 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 knowledge.

And lo, California got here by way of. As at all times with the USA, they publish every part about themselves, making knowledge out there 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 examine of a fleet of ten gas cell buses in Oakland, California for the total 12 months of 2020 discovered that the common upkeep for distance traveled was a lot greater 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 examine from Southern California by NREL of of 10 gas cell buses for 16 months discovered prices per distance traveled decrease than the OSTI examine at 42 cents per mile, however nonetheless greater than the 35 cents per mile diesel baseline. Notably, propulsion associated upkeep was 37.3% of complete.

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

A bit extra looking discovered no different empirical knowledge out there in English on upkeep prices.

However now the information set is the next:

• Bus fleet research from California totaling over eight years between three fleets discovered a lot greater upkeep prices than for a diesel baseline.
• Printed articles with quotes from Whistler, BC and Pau, France make it clear that upkeep prices for his or her bus fleets, each the 14 12 months previous Whistler expertise and the one 12 months previous Pau expertise had been very excessive. A decade with zero motion shouldn’t be indicative of a maturing trade.
• The Stadler government on report as saying that upkeep prices are a lot greater 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 based mostly on actually no proof that clearly extra complicated and failure susceptible hydrogen vehicles will likely be about the identical as a lot less complicated battery electrical vehicles, or perhaps a little bit dearer. Additional, they’re all assuming that they are going to be less expensive to keep up than diesel vehicles, the place at the very least they’ve the transmission system to level to.

None of them seem to have gone to take a look at upkeep knowledge for carefully 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 vehicles and requested about upkeep experiences. None of them seem to have seen the $100,000+ gas cell substitute cost a Hyundai automotive proprietor had and began asking questions.

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

Like the belief of low cost inexperienced hydrogen, the belief of low-maintenance gas cell vehicles 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-about legitimate as a result of they’ve been cited so usually.