Hydrogen transport (cars)

Hydrogen transport in Russia

Main article: Hydrogen transport in Russia

2024: Mass production of the world's first hydrogen trucks begins

On February 22, 2024, the American corporation Nikola announced the start of mass production and deliveries of the world's first trucks equipped with a hydrogen power plant. Such trucks have zero emissions of harmful gases into the atmosphere during operation. Read more here.

2022: Shell launches one of the world's largest plants to produce hydrogen for cars

At the end of January 2022, Shell launched one of the world's largest enterprises for the production of "green" hydrogen. The 20 MW cell, created by Shell New Energy, is located in the Chinese province of Hebei, it is designed for the needs of road transport for the period of the XXIV Olympic Winter Games, which will be held from February 4 to 20, 2022. Read more here.

2021

Launch of production of the first production car on hydrogen fuel

In mid-December 2021, Peugeot announced that it had launched production of the first hydrogen-based LCV segment production car. For Peugeot e-Expert Hydrogen, the company's engineers used a non-standard arrangement of hydrogen elements, reportedly, not only the engine compartment was used for this, but also a separate tank under the bottom was created. Read more here.

Construction of gas stations for hydrogen cars has begun throughout North America

On September 30, 2021, the manufacturer electric vehicles Nikola signed a memorandum of understanding Opal Fuels construction with and operation of hydrogen refueling stations throughout North America. Under the agreement, the two companies will work to jointly develop the technology needed to accelerate the adoption of fuel cell electric vehicles. The companies also plan to explore the use of renewable natural gas. More. here

2020

Hyundai has started shipping hydrogen trucks

In early July 2020, Hyundai Motor announced the start of deliveries of the world's first production heavy hydrogen fuel cell truck. The first 10 Hyundai XCIENT Fuel Cells went to Switzerland. Read more here.

Subsidies for the transfer of cars from gasoline to gas may increase

The Russian government will bear 60% of the costs of transferring cars from gasoline to gas. The corresponding proposal was announced in June by the country's Energy Minister Alexander Novak, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Yuri Borisov, as an anti-crisis measure that has already been supported by the government.

According to RBC, the idea is to increase the state subsidy from 30 to 60% for conversion to gas engine fuel. In addition, another 30% will be allocated by Gazprom. Thus, car owners will have to pay only 10% of the cost of transferring their vehicle to gas.

"At existing prices for motor fuel and for the installation of gas-cylinder equipment, one-time budget investments of 0.7 billion rubles [per year] in the conversion of equipment to CNG will allow small and medium-sized businesses and citizens participating in the program to receive savings of 4-5 billion rubles on fuel within three years, reduce the cost of transport services and provide work on the installation of gas cylinder equipment of the service sector enterprise, "said A. Novak. The minister notes that the use of gas engine fuel can reduce the cost of gasoline and diesel by 60-65%.

It is planned that from 2020 to 2024 the government will allocate 50 billion rubles to the development of the gas engine industry. 3.5 billion rubles will be allocated annually from the budget for the creation of gas filling stations, and 700 million rubles will be allocated for the conversion of the fleet.

In March, the Sakhalin Oblast authorities decided to compensate residents of Sakhalin and Kuril Islands for 100% of the costs of transferring their cars to gas engine fuel.

Daimler and Volvo created a joint venture to develop hydrogen engines

On April 21, 2020, truck manufacturers Daimler Truck (a division of Daimler) and Volvo Group agreed on cooperation in the development of hydrogen engines. To do this, the German and Swedish companies created a joint venture Mercedes-Benz Fuel Cell, whose head office will be located in Nabern (Germany). Read more here.

2019

The British turned the train into a hydrogen train

Rail Live 2019 features^[1] prototype^[2] Britain's first hydrogen train, HydroFlex. The four-car train is a modified version of the Class 319 electric train and may be on the UK railways this year, according to IEEE^[3] Board^[4][5][6][7].

The UK railways are the oldest in the whole world, their length is almost 16 thousand kilometers. At the same time, a little more than half of the country's railways are electrified, diesel trains run on non-electrified sections. transport UK passenger trains consumed 2016-2017 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 3.5 million litres of diesel in 501, collectively equivalent to 2.9 megatons of carbon dioxide, according to the government's decarbonisation working group.

The UK (like some other countries) intends to abandon the use of diesel trains over time - the final replacement of almost four thousand diesel trains is planned by 2040. Electrification of tracks is expensive, so railway operators in a number of countries have seriously begun to consider hydrogen trains as an environmentally friendly alternative to diesel in recent years. The French company Alstom, for example, introduced its hydrogen train back in 2016, and two years later these hydrogen trains began to run on one of the routes in Germany.

Engineers from Birmingham Railway Research Centre and Porterbrook modified the Class 319 electric train into a hybrid HydroFlex train. The resulting four-car train can still move, receiving electricity from the power grid (both via wires and through a contact rail), however, one of the cars has a 100-kilowatt fuel cell, lithium-ion batteries and 20 kilograms of compressed hydrogen. It is assumed that the train is powered most of the way by the contact network, and when there is no such possibility, it uses hydrogen reserves.

So far, developers have demonstrated HydroFlex's capabilities at a railway test site in Warwickshire, but plan to move to testing a hydrogen train on the UK's main rail network this year with the support of the Department for Transport.

Bosch announces mass production of hydrogen fuel cells

On April 29, 2019, Bosch announced the start of mass production of hydrogen fuel cells. With their help, the range of electric vehicles will increase, and trucks will become less harmful to the environment.

Bosch's partner in the serial production of fuel cells was the Swedish Powercell. Together, the company is developing elements with a polymer solid electrolyte membrane, which Bosch will produce under a global license.

Bosch began production of hydrogen fuel cells. Electric vehicle mileage to rise to 1000km

Refueling hydrogen cylinders takes much less time compared to batteries, making them more preferred for use in electric vehicles, allowing them to drive electric for longer, Reuters reported.

In March 2019, the Chinese company Wuhan Grove Hydrogen Automobile introduced a hydrogen car with a range of about 1000 km. According to the developers, the cylinders are refueled in just a few minutes.

By the end of April 2019, few models of hydrogen cars are produced. Among them are Toyota Mirai,  Honda Clarity  and Hyundai Nexo. The range at one gas station is 502 km, 750 km and 595 km, respectively.

Bosch says one litre of hydrogen contains as much energy as three litres of diesel. The company predicts hydrogen-fueled fuel cells will be used in one in five electric cars by 2030.

According to the rules of the European Union, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from trucks should be reduced by 15% by 2025 and by 30% by 2030, which forces automakers to switch to hybrid and electric power plants.

The mass spread of hydrogen cars is hindered by the high cost of production, the lack of infrastructure and the difficulty of storing hydrogen. But fuel cells provide cars with rapid acceleration, silent operation and no emissions (except for harmless water vapor).^[8]

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