Think of all the stuff you come into contact within one day. This stuff didn't come out of nowhere. In most cases, it made a journey that crossed city limits or even country borders. And one leg of the trip likely involved one of these. You could call trucks the backbone of commerce. Unfortunately, the way they work right now is very unhealthy for the planet. Just look at Europe where trucks and buses barely make up any of the vehicles on the road. But they're responsible for a huge chunk of transport emissions. Which keeps going up because more and more freight needs to be moved around. Our best bet is to make these zero emissions. And that means electric motors. They can be powered with two options you already know from the car industry: Batteries and hydrogen. But trucks face a different set of challenges than passenger cars. They usually drive further and carry much heavier loads. So which system will win the race for the truck of the future? Or do we need both? If you talked about zero emission trucks just a few years ago, you might have been... "...laughed out of the room." This is Felipe Rodriguez. He works to reduce the climate impacts of heavy duty vehicles. There were many preconceived notions about what batteries could do and what batteries were. So batteries are too expensive, batteries are too heavy, batteries are too big." The idea was that the massive batteries needed to power these big trucks would compromise how much cargo they could carry. Transporting heavy loads would make the batteries run out mid-journey. Freight operators often have tight profit margins. Time is money and they don't really want to waste it on hours of charging. So the focus shifted to fuel cells. These devices essentially work like batteries that run on stored hydrogen and oxygen from the air. They can produce enough electricity to power a truck. And their only byproducts are heat and water. Of course it takes a lot of energy to produce pure hydrogen so that it can be used as fuel. But even then, a hydrogen truck produces up to 33% fewer emissions across its lifecycle than its diesel counterpart. The savings are much greater if the hydrogen is produced with renewable energy. But that's barely happening. Simply speaking: Hydrogen trucks can reduce emissions without compromising cargo capacity or requiring long breaks. "Refueling a hydrogen truck is more or less the same as refueling your diesel truck." Volker Hasenberg manages the hydrogen strategy at Daimler Truck. "You have a station. You store your energy on board in the truck. And this takes a couple of minutes." So at first sight, hydrogen fuel cells look like a slam-dunk solution for trucks. But here's the thing. All these assumptions about batteries... "too expensive, too heavy." ... are already kind of outdated. "What has happened in the past few years is – let's say mind-boggling." Batteries have become much cheaper very quickly. And their energy density has improved. That means a truck can get much more range from the same size battery pack. Researchers are also working on megawatt charging systems for heavy-duty trucks. The aim: To reduce the charging time from several hours to as little as 15 minutes. This would allow truck drivers to charge the vehicles during their mandated driving break, which of course varies around the world. Though that's still a massive challenge in terms of infrastructure. What swung the pendulum in favor of battery-electric motors was high-scale investment in EVs like these. Because when it comes to greener passenger cars, most governments and producers are betting on batteries. "It's a whole automotive industry really which is bringing down the cost of batteries." David Cebon researches road transport engineering at the University of Cambridge. "But only a small industry, relatively small number of players working on engineering of fuel cells and hydrogen storage and hydrogen delivery." Battery-powered trucks also have the advantage that they're cheaper to operate than hydrogen trucks. Because they're more efficient. You see, to power a fuel cell with green hydrogen, you need to turn electricity into hydrogen, transport that to refueling stations and pump it into a fuel cell which then turns it back into electricity. Roughly 60% of energy is lost on the way. Compare that to a fully electric truck. It needs energy to charge a battery, which then powers the motor. Only about 20% is lost. "When you compare those two strategies, the hydrogen fuel cell strategy uses three times more electricity, green electricity, to generate one kWh at the wheels of the vehicle. You have to have three times more wind turbines, three times more solar panels, or three times more nuclear power stations." The fact that battery electric trucks are cheaper to operate makes a huge difference. It compensates for the investment up front to buy the vehicle, which is high. Higher than for fuel cell trucks. So if you look at the total cost of ownership, the sum of all the expenses for a vehicle across its lifecycle, battery-powered trucks come out looking pretty good. More importantly, they could become even cheaper than diesel trucks before 2030. Look just how fast this is happening for long-distance tractor trailers across Europe. Of course battery-powered trucks have the added bonus of emitting way less than their diesel counterparts. They can be powered by an electricity mix of fossil fuels and renewables. That saves about 63% in emissions. If they are powered with clean energy only, that saves 92%. As battery technologies develop rapidly, this begs the question: Is the race between electric and hydrogen trucks already over? And what does that mean? In most countries, battery-powered trucks still represent less than 1% of sales. But projections say they will make up a vast majority of the European market by 2050. And manufacturers like Daimler and Volvo who are betting on hydrogen are not betting on it instead of batteries. But in addition to batteries. But apart from workplace banter, should truckmakers be investing in hydrogen, after all we've seen? "It's a very interesting debate because you have massive multinational corporations arriving at very different conclusions." Hydrogen truck producers basically want another leg to stand on. They are betting that battery-powered trucks will never develop enough to carry extremely heavy loads across several thousands of kilometers. Because more cargo requires more energy. "Think about machines, think about construction, think about, in general, what weighs a lot. When the threshold is the weight, not the space to be transported, then we have an advantage for hydrogen trucks." At that point, opponents say: That is a very niche application to warrant a whole separate system. "You've got to make all your infrastructure, your filling stations and everything available on a small proportion of trucking." So are there ways to make battery-powered trucks more viable for very heavy cargo on long journeys? Operators could swap out battery packs instead of waiting to recharge them. That would probably require industry-wide cooperation on battery-swap systems though. Another option would be to install electric road systems in some parts. They would allow trucks to collect electricity from overhead contact lines – like you may have seen trains or trams do. And it could make it easier to drive through remote areas where there might not be charging stations. That brings us to our next point: infrastructure. It needs to expand a lot – for either technology – if zero emissions trucks are to take over. Hydrogen refueling stations are still extremely scarce, with entire regions in Europe not having any at all. When it comes to EV charging, there is more solid infrastructure in place for passenger cars. BUT the kind of high power charging that trucks need is almost completely missing. In the European Union, that's where this law could come into play. It sets specific targets for member states to deploy more charging and refueling stations in the coming years. "So we see that big companies are now springing up to say like alright, we're going to cover that need because we see that this business will come, right, because the regulatory decisions, the policy, creates certainty for us to make those investments." Regulations that signal to businesses that this is where the future of trucks is headed are vital. They take some risk out of this big transition. The same needs to happen to spur manufacturers into mass-producing zero emissions trucks. Because at the moment not enough are being produced for fleet operators to make the switch. So, the EU is looking to revise its CO2 standards for trucks. While it doesn't put an end to internal combustion engines, the proposal wants new heavy-duty vehicles to emit 90% less by 2040. Both battery and fuel cell trucks need to tackle their infrastructure and supply. But there is one challenge specific to hydrogen trucks. And that's the price of the fuel. "We need to commercialize the production of hydrogen. Currently, when you're talking about green hydrogen, we are producing hydrogen at very small scale. And it's a simple thing. When you enlarge your production side, you can bring costs down." This is where estimates diverge quite a bit. Some projections are optimistic... while others say it'll stay expensive for the next decades. So the falling price of hydrogen is yet another MAYBE in a long list of uncertainties during this transition. Because to get all the stuff to us that we use every day without all those emissions, some big questions still need answering. How much cheaper and smaller can batteries get? How fast can they be charged? And will there ever be enough green hydrogen? Either way... "We need to do something to decarbonize the sector. We need to do it quickly." It looks like pure electric trucks are way ahead of hydrogen in the race to deliver our future goods. But they are both bringing us closer to the same finish line: To reach our climate targets. And you might want to stay tuned because there could still be some surprises along the way. "So, should companies be betting on batteries and hydrogen. Or is it best to focus on one solution? Let us know what you think and don't forget to subscribe to our channel."
