Manufacturer of hydrogen trucks: ‘Why wait until 2040?’

At the initiative of the Netherlands, eleven countries agreed at the climate summit in Glasgow that from 2040 all new trucks and buses must be emission-free. And that is good news for this company in Winschoten that makes hydrogen trucks. See NOS News' interview with Chief Technical Officer Carl Holthausen at the link below:

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Translation

CARL:

I was like: YES we have a deal for zero emissions in Europe. Only, yes 2040…

REP:

That's a little bit late?

CARL:

That's way too late, we're already ready, we can deliver right now.

We are already delivering plenty of zero-emission hydrogen vehicles.

Why wait that long?

CARL BEHIND TRUCK:

Here you see a tower with hydrogen cylinders.

In this case, these hydrogen cylinders contain over 500 kilowatts of energy.

Underneath is a battery pack.

Not because the hydrogen truck runs on batteries. This is how we recover braking energy.

When you brake you can capture energy.

Under the cab is the fuel cell.

And an electric motor built in.

This combination makes the hydrogen truck.

You can drive it 600 to 700 kilometers.

That's what a trucker wants…to drive long distances.

You can do that with a hydrogen truck.

You can't do that with a battery truck.

A battery charges with a plug - it takes 45 minutes to an hour. Maybe even longer.

With a hydrogen truck, in 8 to 10 minutes you're filled up again and you're ready to go.

That's the same time when they start filling up with diesel.

Right now we are preparing the plant to make 5,000 trucks a year.

So I would say:

We're ready. But here and there, we still need to add a few more filling stations.

For this year about 20 filling stations are planned in the Netherlands.

Anyway, we're not just talking about the Netherlands, but about the whole of Europe.

We still have quite a job to do.

But let's do it country by country.

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