On the way to climate neutrality, according to EU specifications, CO2 emissions from heavy commercial vehicles are to be reduced by 30 percent by 2030. To achieve this goal, around 200,000 emission-free trucks would have to be in use in Europe by 2030. This is the result of the new VDI/VDE study "Climate-friendly commercial vehicles - comparison of different technology paths for CO2-neutral and CO2-free drives".In order to meet the EU requirements, VDI and VDE clearly rely on fuel cell drives for long-distance transport of heavy commercial vehicles and battery-electric drives for small commercial vehicles in urban areas. Battery vehicles are generally more efficient, but fuel cell vehicles have advantages in terms of range and refueling time. The range in particular poses a challenge for battery-powered commercial vehicles. They struggle with the battery weights on board and a long charging time. Hydrogen can solve the problem here because it has a greater energy density.The charging and filling station infrastructure for commercial vehicles also does not meet operational requirements. “The recent political plan to no longer promote the construction and operation of hydrogen filling stations would have fatal consequences. In this way, politicians are obstructing the EU requirements for reducing CO2 emissions from heavy trucks,” warns Martin Pokojski, Chairman of the VDI/VDE Technical Committee for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Vehicles. "Now is the right time to further expand existing hydrogen filling stations and to add new ones."The charging stations and hydrogen filling stations currently do not meet the requirements of heavy commercial vehicles. The current 90,700 bar filling stations are only suitable for trucks to a limited extent in terms of the quantities required and the speed with which they can be filled up.By 2030, 70 truck-compatible H2 filling stations would have to be set up in Germany, distributed evenly across the motorway network. Only 25 of the 16,100 charging points are currently suitable for trucks with batteries. To cover just 5 percent of the vehicle population, 1,200 charging points with a charging capacity of 720 kW would be required.According to VDI and VDE, another problem is that the costs for climate-friendly commercial vehicles are still too high. Only when the operating costs for freight forwarders, consumers and industry are within acceptable limits will they switch to climate-friendly commercial vehicles. The associations assume that manufacturing costs will fall as a result of mass production and that the competitiveness of diesel vehicles will decrease as a result of CO2 taxes and access restrictionsThe authors of the study agree: In the medium to long term, climate-friendly commercial vehicles can help to reduce the economic costs in the area of mobility compared to the status quo. The areas of research and development in particular need funding to develop innovative technologies in commercial vehicle production. This would also accelerate competitiveness. In addition, tax incentives are needed so that fleet operations, for example in inner-city areas, increasingly switch to electrified commercial vehicles.
On the way to climate neutrality, according to EU specifications, CO2 emissions from heavy commercial vehicles are to be reduced by 30 percent by 2030. To achieve this goal, around 200,000 emission-free trucks would have to be in use in Europe by 2030. This is the result of the new VDI/VDE study "Climate-friendly commercial vehicles - comparison of different technology paths for CO2-neutral and CO2-free drives".In order to meet the EU requirements, VDI and VDE clearly rely on fuel cell drives for long-distance transport of heavy commercial vehicles and battery-electric drives for small commercial vehicles in urban areas. Battery vehicles are generally more efficient, but fuel cell vehicles have advantages in terms of range and refueling time. The range in particular poses a challenge for battery-powered commercial vehicles. They struggle with the battery weights on board and a long charging time. Hydrogen can solve the problem here because it has a greater energy density.The charging and filling station infrastructure for commercial vehicles also does not meet operational requirements. “The recent political plan to no longer promote the construction and operation of hydrogen filling stations would have fatal consequences. In this way, politicians are obstructing the EU requirements for reducing CO2 emissions from heavy trucks,” warns Martin Pokojski, Chairman of the VDI/VDE Technical Committee for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Vehicles. "Now is the right time to further expand existing hydrogen filling stations and to add new ones."The charging stations and hydrogen filling stations currently do not meet the requirements of heavy commercial vehicles. The current 90,700 bar filling stations are only suitable for trucks to a limited extent in terms of the quantities required and the speed with which they can be filled up.By 2030, 70 truck-compatible H2 filling stations would have to be set up in Germany, distributed evenly across the motorway network. Only 25 of the 16,100 charging points are currently suitable for trucks with batteries. To cover just 5 percent of the vehicle population, 1,200 charging points with a charging capacity of 720 kW would be required.According to VDI and VDE, another problem is that the costs for climate-friendly commercial vehicles are still too high. Only when the operating costs for freight forwarders, consumers and industry are within acceptable limits will they switch to climate-friendly commercial vehicles. The associations assume that manufacturing costs will fall as a result of mass production and that the competitiveness of diesel vehicles will decrease as a result of CO2 taxes and access restrictionsThe authors of the study agree: In the medium to long term, climate-friendly commercial vehicles can help to reduce the economic costs in the area of mobility compared to the status quo. The areas of research and development in particular need funding to develop innovative technologies in commercial vehicle production. This would also accelerate competitiveness. In addition, tax incentives are needed so that fleet operations, for example in inner-city areas, increasingly switch to electrified commercial vehicles.
