Daimler Truck AG, IVECO, OMV, Shell and the Volvo Group have teamed up to form H2Accelerate, a new collaboration that will see them working towards a mass-market roll-out of hydrogen trucks in Europe.
The view of the H2Accelerate participants is that hydrogen is an essential fuel for the complete decarbonisation of the truck sector.
“Climate change is the challenge of our generation and we are fully committed to the Paris Climate Agreement for decarbonizing road transport. In the future, the world will be powered by a combination of battery-electric and fuel-cell electric vehicles, along with other renewable fuels to some extent. The formation of the H2Accelerate collaboration is an important step in shaping a world we want to live in,” said Martin Lundstedt, President and CEO of the Volvo Group.
Achieving a large-scale roll-out of hydrogen fuelled trucks is expected to create new industries: zero-carbon hydrogen production facilities, large-scale hydrogen distribution systems, a network of high-capacity refuelling stations for liquid and gaseous hydrogen, and the production of the hydrogen fuelled trucks.
According to H2Accelerate participants, synchronised investments across the sector during the 2020s will create the conditions for the mass market roll-out of hydrogen fuelled heavy duty transportation in Europe which is required to meet the European ambition of net zero emissions by 2050.
“By boosting scale in a big way, hydrogen fuelled trucks will need to become available to customers at or below the cost of owning and operating a diesel truck today. This means truck customers will need to have access to a fully zero emissions vehicle with a similar refuelling time, range and cost range compared to the vehicles in use today. To achieve this ambition a clear regulatory framework is needed, including policies addressing the supply of hydrogen, hydrogen fuelled trucks, refuelling infrastructure and consumer incentives in a coordinated way,” said Elisabeth Brinton, Executive Vice President for New Energies at Shell.