Will Hydrogen Fuel Cell Trucks Just Follow The Hydrogen Car Storyline?

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A decade ago, it was common to have a lot of press releases, auto executive statements, and debates about the future of hydrogen-powered cars. Many people believed they were the future, not battery-electric cars. The debates raged and raged. We wrote countless articles on the topic.

Now, that has all but died off. (Unfortunately, there are still people throwing away money to fund foolish hydrogen car programs.) The market has clarified what was clear to some of us a decade ago but certainly not clear to many others — hydrogen-powered cars do not make sense, and they can’t compete in the market as a result. There are several big reasons for this, but there’s really no need to get into that any more. Or, well, almost no need. (See story linked above.)

That said, there are still a lot of discussions, trials, and vehicle development programs for hydrogen-powered trucks. A few articles and comments from a couple of weeks ago brought me to think about this and stimulated the question in the headline. Will hydrogen fuel cell trucks just end up following the hydrogen car storyline and end up a failed industry in 5 to 10 years?

There have been arguments for why hydrogen-powered trucks should be competitive, and reasons why battery-electric trucks are a bigger challenge than battery-electric cars — especially on very long-distance routes. However, battery technology keeps improving rapidly, and solutions for battery-electric trucks are clear. Meanwhile, hydrogen vehicle still face some serious challenges. In theory, hydrogen can compete. But in practice, in the market, do hydrogen trucks really stand any chance?

If battery costs keep coming down — as expected — and proper charging hubs for heavy-duty electric vehicles get developed, battery-electric trucks seem set to win the day. They will be benefit from being easy, established technologies whose cousins have hit the mass market on the passenger car sales — and there’s all manner of shared supply chains, repair networks, charging infrastructure, and human familiarity that provide a boost in that case. Meanwhile, the hydrogen supply chain? Hydrogen leakage problems? Shipping hydrogen around the world? The high cost of hydrogen powertrains? The smaller and smaller window of entry as battery-electric trucks scale up? The limited hydrogen fueling industry and infrastructure? It’s easy to see a path for battery-electric trucks. It’s getting harder to see one for hydrogen-powered trucks. (Of course, some scientists, analysts, and consultants have been saying this all along.)

This year, I’ve been reporting on the explosion in BYD electric truck sales. See “BYD Electric Truck Sales Up 1,195%” for the latest report. BYD is now selling thousands of battery-electric trucks a month. Companies are buying them for clear reasons, and they keep buying them — more and more. Apparently, they already make a lot of sense. Then there are legacy truck makers — from Volvo to Daimler — that are getting serious about battery-electric trucks. I’m sensing a trend, and it feels a lot like the trend toward battery-electric cars that picked up steam (er, electrons) a decade ago. We’ll see where things go.