Following Tesla's announced electric truck and Nikola Motor Company's hydrogen prototypes, Scania too is setting its sights on a zero-emission heavy vehicle powered by a fuel cell.
The electrification of heavy transport is about as close as it gets to metalworking. At first the material is hard, so hard as to seem intractable. But then, with the application of heat, even the toughest steel becomes white-hot. And malleable. The same is happening today with freight logistics. If, until a few years ago, talking about battery-powered mobility was taboo, now, thanks to the commitment of certain manufacturers and the development of hydrogen technology, a zero-emission — or at least reduced-emission — horizon is looking increasingly likely.
Elon Musk, the head of Tesla, was the first to fire the starting gun, declaring that "the electric truck will happen, and it's going to be a beast!". He also promised that the brand-new vehicle will be capable of a range of close to 500 kilometres and will feature a modern autonomous driving system derived from the Autopilot technology developed for the American battery-powered cars. Persistent rumours speak of trials of the first "semi-autonomous convoys", with the lead vehicle driven by a human being and the following trucks — travelling in a platoon along the endless motorways of the United States — entrusted to artificial intelligence.
The second blast of heat to set the commercial transport sector well and truly ablaze came from Nikola Motor Company, a factory based in Salt Lake City, Utah (USA), which announced the production, by 2021, of two hydrogen-powered electric road tractors with a range of up to two thousand kilometres. Vehicles developed jointly with Bosch, the automotive electronics specialist, which will benefit, according to announcements, from a full refuel in fifteen minutes, combined with remarkable towing capacity, given the 1,000-horsepower engine capable of delivering a torque of 2,712 Nm. Trucks which, according to Trevor Milton, founder and chief executive of the American company, are set to mark "the end of the diesel engine".
Tesla with its battery truck, Nikola with its hydrogen road tractor, and then Mercedes with the Urban eTruck, an electric model with a three-axle chassis and a gross weight of 26 tonnes, designed for short- and medium-range distribution (within 200 kilometres): these are the first three leaves of the four-leaf clover of low-impact heavy-duty mobility. One element is missing, however. Perhaps the most important one, as it coincides with one of the leading manufacturers active in the transport sector. We are talking about the Swedish company Scania, a pioneer of a 360-degree commitment to cutting emissions, to the point of having brought to market, in 2016 alone, as many as 5,000 sustainable heavy vehicles, representing a 40 per cent increase on the previous year. Scania now declares its intention to pursue a new and further path towards environmental responsibility. The hydrogen path.
Hydrogen as a solution for heavy transport is the foundation of the partnership between Scania and Asko, Norway's leading wholesaler of consumer goods. A collaboration based on the shared goal of testing innovative fuel cell trucks. These vehicles are nonetheless equipped with batteries — just like models powered exclusively by accumulators — whose role is to support the electric motor during peak load phases and store the energy recovered during braking. A technology that, according to Hedvig Paradis, the person responsible at Scania for the collaboration with Asko, "could take root rapidly in Japan, South Korea and California, where public administrations are investing heavily in hydrogen infrastructure, united by the goal of drastically cutting emissions".
As always happens when a top player enters the field, the game takes on a different tone and play accelerates. With Scania in the running, hydrogen for heavy transport has one more ally.