Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - February 2022 - 16

'MIXED' APPROACH TO
E-TRUCK
MANUFACTURING
Lars Stenqvist,
chief technology
officer of the
Volvo Group.
" The intention is to reuse the
equipment and to then balance
between volumes of the
different technologies. "
factory is completely empty. The intention is to reuse
the equipment and to then balance between volumes
of the different technologies. "
Late last year, cellcentric also signed a deal with
Rolls-Royce Power Systems to supply the company
with fuel cell modules that will be used to build emergency
back-up power systems for data centers (see
page 11). Stenqvist says that its fuel-cell systems will
not use methanol or ammonia as a source fuel.
" What we are looking at is to use hydrogen, directly
into the fuel cell. You can have methanol or ammonia,
etc., and in the shipping industry you will most likely
see methanol and ammonia. Our intention is to store
it on the vehicles as pure hydrogen and it could be in
gas or liquid form, " Stenqvist said. " In the long run,
we need to work out at least a European standard for
this, when it comes to filling stations. But when my
engineers are working on the packaging and layout of
the vehicles, we're working on hydrogen storage onboard
the vehicle. "
Stenqvist would not offer a date when the production
of fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) would start, but says
that it would be well before 2030. He also thinks that it is
important the fuel is completely fossil-free.
" We believe that we need three technologies in parallel:
battery-electric vehicles, fuel-cell electric vehicles,
and we also believe in the combustion engines
for certain applications - but then running on renewable
fuels, of course, " he said. " For us, it is important
to have this in place before the end of the decade.
That's an important piece of the puzzle. "
16 February 2022
To accommodate the mixed-model assembly, Volvo Group will install a number of
new pre-assembly and sub-assembly stations on the lines.
Considering use cases, infrastructure
There is a general view among truck OEMs that there will be a split
between BEVs, which will generally be used for local and regional
distribution vehicles, and FCEVs, which will be generally used for
long-haul vehicles. That may not always be the case.
" I think we will see national or at least regional differences in this, "
Stenqvist reckoned. " There's not a short line in-between exactly -
these specifications will be battery electric and those will be fuel cell
- but battery-electric vehicles definitely have advantages when it
comes to city distribution and refuse trucks. Those guys come home
to the depot every evening and can charge the batteries overnight.
They will go battery electric. No reason to go fuel cell for them.
" The long-haulers don't really know where they are charging, where
they are filling up, " he continued. " They will most likely be more towards
the fuel cells - long-haulers and heavy-haulers. They can have
quick refueling and you will gain payload by going fuel cell instead of
battery electric. You will have certain advantages, but you will also
have specifications where you'll see in one region it will be battery
electric and in other regions it will be fuel-cell electric because we will
have issues when it comes to infrastructure and charging capacity. "
By way of illustration, Stenqvist puts forward an infrastructure issue:
" When we're talking about true long-haul, if you want to charge your
battery-electric vehicle when having lunch, for example, after four hours
driving, then you need to have a charger with a capacity of say 750 kW.
It's a lot, but if you then imagine that you have 1,000 trucks in parallel
charging in a region or a country. We register 300,000 trucks every year
in Europe, so charging 1,000 trucks in parallel is not much [to imagine].
Then 1,000 trucks is all of a sudden 750 MW at the same time.
TRUCK & OFF-HIGHWAY ENGINEERING
BOTH IMAGES: VOLVO GROUP
Truck & Off-Highway Engineering - February 2022

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