What new wave of hydrogen fuel cells has CES brought under electrification?

From drones, Nikola trucks to Daimler products, to the "Toyota City", we are seeing hydrogen fuel technology in more and more fields

For companies in the automotive field, the grand CES in Las Vegas is arguably the best time for them to showcase cutting-edge transportation technologies. With products such as Ford's Mach-E electric Mustang, Byton's M-Byte crossover, Fisker's Ocean SUV, and even Sony's electric car, we are sure that the wave of electrification is unstoppable.

But the 2020 show also revealed another message. As a clean fuel, hydrogen’s impact on the passenger car market is negligible, but it has untapped potential as a power source for commercial vehicles, heavy trucks, buses, drones and cities.

Looking back to a year ago, we saw Hyundai's hydrogen fuel cell car Nexo at CES, and the entire booth presented the concept of "future hydrogen life"; at the Asian CES in the middle of the year, we saw the Mercedes-Benz GLC F-CELL fuel cell car; SAIC Maxus launched the G20 FC hydrogen fuel cell car, which uses its independently developed third-generation fuel cell system and is the first in China to apply a 70MPa hydrogen bottle hydrogen supply system.

At CES 2020, we not only saw a bigger hydrogen fuel cell "wave", but also more and more companies participated in it. The products themselves broke through the automotive field and became more diversified.

Toyota, which has launched its Mirai hydrogen fuel cell sedan for five years, said it will apply decades of hydrogen fuel research and development technology to build a city called "Woven City" near Mount Fuji in Japan to showcase environmental protection technology, autonomous driving, travel modes, artificial intelligence and new buildings. The project is expected to start construction in 2021 and 2,000 residents will settle here.

"Powered by Toyota's hydrogen fuel cell technology, this will be a truly unique opportunity to create an entire community or city from scratch, where the connected, digital, sustainable infrastructure of the future is intertwined with people's lives," said Toyota President Akio Toyoda.

It is reported that the 175-acre (about 700,000 square meters) "Toyota City" will be equipped with a hydrogen-electric system supplemented by a large number of rooftop solar installations.

Japanese automakers have made great efforts to promote their own hydrogen energy strategy. However, looking at the world, several major auto giants have also not been absent.

Audi, a subsidiary of Volkswagen, demonstrated the h-tron quattro hydrogen fuel cell concept car in 2016; at the 2019 Frankfurt Motor Show, BMW released a model called i Hydrogen Next, which is based on the BMW X5 and is equipped with a hydrogen fuel-battery power system.

Like Toyota, Daimler has been working on commercializing fuel cell vehicles since the 1990s.

Daimler's current fuel cell vehicles include Mercedes-Benz buses, Fuso trucks and the F-Cell SUV

In response, Markus Schäfer, member of the Mercedes-Benz board of directors and head of group research and development and Mercedes-Benz passenger car development, said that although Mercedes-Benz currently has hydrogen fuel cell versions of SUVs in several markets, the parent company is shifting the focus of the technology to heavy trucks and buses.

"One of the big challenges with trucks is the long-haul problem, which makes them less suitable for pure battery electric versions, at least not with the current level of batteries," Schaefer said at the CES press conference. "For us, the promotion of fuel cells will start with buses and trucks."

At the end of 2019, Daimler said it would increase production of fuel cell trucks from the late 2020s to compete with Toyota and start-ups.

"There is nothing wrong with fuel cell technology itself. Cost and scale are the key factors restricting its development," Schaefer explained. "Our advantage is that we have trucks. Daimler is one of the world's largest truck manufacturers, and its Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi Fuso and Freightliner all have related products."

He went on to say that the company is designing a modular system that allows different types of commercial vehicles to use the same hydrogen fuel cell structure so that it can be increased or decreased according to the size of the vehicle or the range of use. "In the next two to three years, hydrogen fuel cells will make a difference in the commercial sector." Schaefer gave this answer.

Hyundai's hydrogen-powered HDC-6 Neptune concept truck

In the past few years, Toyota has been testing hydrogen fuel cell trucks in Los Angeles; Renault used hydrogen fuel as a selling point as early as the year before, saying it would release a hydrogen fuel cell version of the Renault MASTER van at the Faurecia booth; Hyundai Motor and Nikola also target the market for zero-emission hydrogen fuel cell trucks; Hyundai Mobis operates the world's largest hydrogen fuel cell module production line.

Pure battery and hydrogen fuel cell powered cars both run on electricity, which means they can share the same motors and many other parts. The key difference is that the former relies on electricity stored in the battery, while the latter generates electricity as needed by passing hydrogen through the fuel cell membrane, an electrochemical process.

The advantages of hydrogen fuel cells also lie in their high energy conversion efficiency, the lack of mechanical transmission parts, and therefore no noise pollution, the main byproduct is water vapor, and very few harmful gases are emitted. In addition to cars and trucks, this technology has been used by NASA as a stationary generator for decades, and is now being developed to drive trains and even ships and ferries.

Nikola Motors tweeted that it and one of its partners, Ryder, showed off a futuristic model at CES.

Also at this year's CES, Ballard Power Systems and Deloitte China released a joint white paper titled "The Power Source of Future Mobility: Hydrogen Energy and Fuel Cell Transportation Solutions" (the simplified Chinese version is available for download on the official website), which is also the first in a series of reports by both parties exploring hydrogen fuel technology.

“Within a decade, fuel cell vehicles will be more cost-effective than battery electric vehicles or internal combustion engine vehicles for certain commercial applications,” said Randy MacEwen, Ballard’s president and CEO.

At present, the cost per 100 kilometers of fuel cell vehicles is higher than that of pure electric vehicles and fuel vehicles, but with the scale effect and technological improvement, it is not impossible to achieve the goal of significantly reducing costs. In fact, the white paper conservatively estimates that the total cost of ownership (TCO) of commercial hydrogen fuel vehicles will drop by more than 50% in the next decade.

Xu Yutian, Director of Financial Advisory at Deloitte China, said: "For many business operators, hydrogen fuel technology seems very complex and expensive. However, through our in-depth research and model verification, fuel cell vehicles will achieve lower total cost of ownership and operation than pure electric vehicles and fuel vehicles in the short and medium term. We have seen that advanced operators around the world have begun to invest in the development of this technology to stand out in the fierce competition."

Alan Mac, partner of Deloitte China Financial Advisory, explained: "In China, the TCO of pure electric vehicles is close to that of fuel vehicles. It is expected that by 2027, the TCO of fuel cell commercial vehicles will be lower than that of fuel vehicles, and lower than that of pure electric vehicles in 2028. As the cost of fuel cell systems and hydrogen fuel is reduced by 60% to 70%, the TCO of fuel cell vehicles will be lower than that of other vehicles."

Lin Chenghong, Director of Financial Advisory at Deloitte China, said: "By focusing on the development of renewable energy, China has become one of the world's largest hydrogen energy markets and the largest hydrogen producer. In the past few years, China has vigorously promoted the development of the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle industry, which has driven the maturity of technology, reduced the cost of hydrogen production, and taken the lead in realizing hydrogen energy applications in many fields. At present, China has led the world in some fuel cell commercial vehicles, especially in medium-duty trucks and buses.

In fact, hydrogen fuel cells can be used not only in large and heavy trucks that have to travel long distances, but also in drones. Doosan Mobility Innovation from South Korea demonstrated a long-flight fuel cell drone and won the CES Innovation Award.

The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of South Korea's Doosan Group established in 2016 and is committed to developing portable fuel cell systems for drones, forklifts, construction machinery and other mobile equipment.

Its DS30 commercial drone uses a compact and lightweight hydrogen fuel cell system developed by itself, claiming that the energy density is at least three times that of pure batteries and can reach two hours of flight time. At least from the data, hydrogen fuel cells do solve the biggest pain point in the current small drone field. (Article & Image Source: Forbes, Morningstar, Deloitte, Author: Alan Ohnsman, PR Newswire)