Bavarian automaker BMW has introduced plans to transform the intralogistics fleet at its Regensburg plant from battery to hydrogen energy, with FCEV forklift and tugger vehicles set to interchange the whole lot of its current fleet by 2030.
Regardless of gross sales of BMW’s battery electrical beginning to take off, the propeller firm continues to be investing closely in gas cell growth – from its newest iX5 Hydrogen FCEV idea to, effectively, the intralogistics fleet at its Regensburg plant, the place the corporate plans to make use of hydrogen forklifts and tuggers within the press store, physique store, and meeting strains.
BMW’s aggressive deployment timeline is, in fact, loaded with issues. For starters, little or no hydrogen is definitely “inexperienced,” and the vast majority of conventionally out there hydrogen is created utilizing fossil fuels – making it each far much less environmentally sustainable than you may assume … and much more costly than both diesel gas or battery capability.
Then there’s the outright misinformation, like this tidbit:
Switching manufacturing logistics from electrical energy to hydrogen will diversify our plant’s vitality combine – whereas optimizing logistics processes and saving precious house. The benefit of hydrogen is that refueling may be very quick – identical to with typical fuels. The filling stations required for this might be put in immediately throughout the completely different manufacturing areas and don’t take up a lot house.
Challenge Supervisor, BMW Regensburg, Katharina Radtke
I don’t assume it is a scenario the place Katharina is making an attempt to unfold misinformation – however she does, like many hydrogen followers, appear to be misinformed.
See, while you replenish a storage tank with a gasoline like H or CNG, the gasoline heats up because it’s shortly pressured into the tank, inflicting it to increase. Which means the identical quantity of gas takes up extra bodily house sizzling than it does chilly – and, because the gasoline within the tank regularly cools down, it contracts, leaving empty house within the tank.
Which means you may “quick fill” a hydrogen tank to 100% in a couple of minutes, but it surely’ll ultimately settle again all the way down to about 75-80% full, even in the event you don’t drive wherever. You’ll then must “sluggish fill” the remaining capability to keep away from an analogous growth – and that can take hours.
You may see an instance of this phenomenon, under, on this interactive infographic from the US Division of Power’s Various Fuels Knowledge Heart (AFDC).
Electrek’s Take
In case you may’t learn between the strains, filling a tank with hydrogen isn’t any sooner than filling a battery with electrical energy, and even probably the most cryo-compressed hydrogen tanks can’t get too far previous a 90% quick fill … and so they produce other issues with boil off, leaks, and so on. All of which kind of begs the query: why make the change to hydrogen in any respect?
Again in January, MAN Vans’ CEO, Alexander Vlaskamp, informed reporters that it was, “unattainable for hydrogen to successfully compete with battery electrical vehicles.” Vlaskamp added, “At the moment you can’t purchase hydrogen for lower than 13 or 14 euros … and it isn’t inexperienced. And when we now have inexperienced hydrogen it will likely be wanted for the heavy business of metal, cement, or plastic.”
So — if all that’s true, why is MAN, like BMW, persevering with to put money into hydrogen-powered automobile packages? “Solely to check our speculation,” says Vlaskamp (emphasis mine). “We might use hydrogen for transportation in 2035, however provided that there may be sufficient inexperienced hydrogen on the proper value and the mandatory infrastructure is in place.”
To make sure it has sufficient H, BMW will set up a mile-long community of underground pipes, with six decentralized H filling stations, between now and Q1 of 2026. “As soon as the conversion is accomplished, our annual hydrogen consumption might be round 150 tonnes,” says Radtke.
Right here’s hoping BMW can get a greater deal than 14 euros for soiled gas by then.
SOURCE | IMAGES: BMW.
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