Traton : Fraunhofer analysis sees battery-electric trucks at an advantage over hydrogen trucks

• In a recent analysis, Fraunhofer ISI assumes that battery-electric drives will also become established in heavy-duty applications in the commercial vehicle sector; fuel cells will remain a niche application.
• The decisive factor for the switch to battery-electric vehicles is the energy cost advantage compared to hydrogen and diesel
• Catharina Modahl-Nilsson, Chief Technical Officer of TRATON GROUP, sees this as confirmation of the commercial vehicle group's strategy to date

Munich, February 7, 2022 - The TRATON GROUP's strategy of clearly focusing on battery-electric drive systems for the powertrain of the future is underpinned by a recent Fraunhofer analysis. In the scientific article by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI entitled "Hydrogen unlikely to play major role in road transport, even for heavy trucks", published in the magazine "Nature Electronics", the authors come to the conclusion that the battery-electric drive is superior to the fuel cell in the vast majority of regions and of commercial vehicle applications, explicitly including long-distance heavy-duty transport.

"We are pleased with the clarity of the analysis result, even if it does not surprise us. It once again confirms TRATON GROUP's strategy of focusing on battery-electric drives for our commercial vehicles," comments Catharina Modahl-Nilsson, Chief Technical Officer of TRATON GROUP. "In truck traffic, especially on long-distance routes, pure e-trucks will in most cases be the cheaper and more environmentally friendly solution. This is because hydrogen trucks have a decisive disadvantage: only about a quarter of the output energy flows into the drive, three quarters is lost through conversion losses. With the e-truck, the ratio is reversed."

In addition, the expected amount of green hydrogen is limited, even with large-scale imports, and should thus be available to energy-rich industries, as the current Fraunhofer study also summarizes. The demand from European industry alone, for example steel mills, massively exceeds the total green hydrogen production capacity currently planned for the EU for 2030.