A prototype Mercedes-Benz GenH2 truck on a recent test drive across Germany in normal traffic conditions managed over 1,000km on one tank of hydrogen.
Powered by a Cellcentric fuel-cell system and equipped with a liquid hydrogen fuel tank system, the run started Monday 25th September in the afternoon at Mercedes-Benz Truck’s Customer Center in Woerth am Rhein and finished on Tuesday morning September 25 in Germany’s capital city Berlin.
The truck completed the run fully loaded and a gross combined vehicle weight of 40 tonnes under real-life conditions, without emitting any CO2 during the complete run. The record drive with sealed tanks and controlled mileage was independently confirmed by an inspection document from TÜV Rheinland.
During the refuelling process, cryogenic liquid hydrogen at minus 253 degrees Celsius was filled into two 40 kg tanks mounted on either side of the truck chassis. Thanks to the particularly good insulation of the vehicle tanks, the hydrogen can be kept at temperature for a sufficiently long time without active cooling.
Daimler Truck prefers liquid hydrogen in the development of hydrogen-based drives. In this state the energy carrier (hydrogen) has a significantly higher energy density in relation to volume compared to gaseous hydrogen. As a result, more hydrogen can be carried, which significantly increases the range and enables comparable performance of the vehicle with that of a conventional diesel truck.
“The sweet spot for fuel-cell trucks lies in flexible and demanding long-haul transportation tasks, said Andreas Gorbach, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler Truck, Head of Truck Technology. “Hydrogen in trucking is anything but hot air: we proved this impressively by cracking the 1,000 kilometers with one fill.”
Three years ago, Daimler Truck announced in Berlin the commitment to invest in hydrogen technology on a grand scale. CEO Martin Daum presented the Mercedes-Benz GenH2 Truck Concept for the first time to the public to underline the company’s technology strategy. This was followed up by establishing Cellcentric, a joint venture with Volvo Group, which will put one of Europe’s largest production facilities for fuel-cells in operation.
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