article

When domestic car-making newcomers are still pondering "how to make the LCD display larger," Volvo, under Geely, has already unveiled a "black technology" in the field of pure electric heavy-duty trucks.

In June 2022, Volvo Trucks officially announced that a pure electric heavy-duty truck equipped with a hydrogen fuel cell and a range of up to 1000 kilometers has entered the testing phase, with mass production expected by 2030. In the product introduction, Volvo Trucks President Roger Alm emphasized that the new pure electric heavy-duty truck will be comparable to traditional diesel trucks, including a range of thousands of kilometers, cargo capacity of over 60 tons, and a charging time as low as 15 minutes.

Some netizens have provocatively commented that even pure electric heavy-duty trucks are going to cover 1000 kilometers now; is it time for BYD, Geely's "old rival," to start a "countdown to obsolescence" with its pure electric heavy-duty trucks? Has Li Shufu finally outdone Wang Chuanfu?

I. The Woes of Pure Electric Trucks: Poor Range

As is well-known, "poor range" is a significant reason many consumers opt not to purchase electric vehicles, and in the truck sector, this issue is particularly exaggerated.

Advertisement

In the era of fuel vehicles, a heavy-duty truck with a standard 400L fuel tank can easily achieve a range of over 1300 kilometers, and trucks like the Dongfeng Tianlong KL with a thousand-liter fuel tank can even travel 3500 kilometers with a full load, equivalent to driving from Mohe, the northernmost point of our country, all the way to Shanghai!

However, in the new energy era, the range of pure electric trucks has been severely reduced, by how much? By 90%.

Taking BYD, which has made significant strides in this field, as an example, whether it's the Q-series heavy-duty trucks launched two years ago or the 8TT that has been successful in the European and American markets, their range is within 350 kilometers. Therefore, they are mostly used for urban public transportation and municipal services.

So, why is the range of pure electric trucks so low?

Some industry insiders have estimated that under normal drag coefficients of 0.35 to 0.55, the power consumption of a fully loaded pure electric heavy-duty truck is about 230 Kwh per hundred kilometers. Considering that the energy density of power batteries is generally around 200 Wh/kg at the current technological level, it is not difficult to calculate that to achieve a range of 400 kilometers for a pure electric truck, the weight of the power battery pack will exceed 3 tons.So, wouldn't the problem be solved by simply adding more battery packs to the truck? The situation is far from that simple. Even setting aside the negative effects of excessive truck weight, blindly stacking batteries could either lead to excessively long charging times or increase the difficulty of battery management.

It can be said that the range limit for pure electric trucks using power batteries has been "locked" at the 400-kilometer mark. How to further improve the range? Geely has come up with its own "hydrogen fuel cell solution."

II. The Hydrogen Fuel Route, or the "Only Solution" for Trucks to Increase Range

Although also referred to as batteries, hydrogen fuel cells are essentially more like a combination of a "fuel tank + internal combustion engine."

The working principle of conventional power batteries is to convert electrical energy into chemical energy for storage. During operation, the battery undergoes specific reactions to convert the chemical energy back into electrical energy. In comparison, hydrogen fuel cells are more straightforward and direct, injecting hydrogen fuel directly into the cell device, which then generates electricity from the hydrogen to produce power.

Compared to power batteries, the advantages of hydrogen fuel cells are quite significant:

Firstly, they have a higher energy density. Chemical research indicates that the energy density of hydrogen is three times that of gasoline and 3.9 times that of pure alcohol. Moreover, hydrogen is one of the top 10 most abundant elements in the Earth's crust, making it an excellent choice for a power source. Additionally, during the energy release process of hydrogen, only a small amount of water vapor is emitted, with no pollutants, making it highly environmentally friendly.

Moreover, hydrogen fuel cells have a wider temperature range and can be normally activated at -30°C. In contrast, both ternary lithium batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries experience significant range reduction and charging difficulties in extremely cold weather. Especially in cold wave conditions at -20°C, the performance of both types of batteries will degrade by more than 30%.

It can be said that the hydrogen fuel route is the only solution for new energy trucks to break the thousand-kilometer range under current technology. However, this path is not easy to tread. There is a consensus in the industry that the popularization of hydrogen fuel cells faces the following three insurmountable challenges:

1. Hydrogen production technology is not environmentally friendlyThe mainstream hydrogen production technologies in various countries currently have varying degrees of environmental issues. For instance, the coal gasification hydrogen technology in our country has serious environmental pollution during the preparation process, while the hydrogen production from natural gas in Western countries emits excessive greenhouse gases.

2. Hydrogen storage is unsafe

Hydrogen elements that dissolve into hydrogen storage steel will aggregate into hydrogen molecules, disrupting the stress balance of the steel and leading to cracks in the hydrogen storage equipment. This phenomenon is known as "hydrogen embrittlement." Currently, hydrogen gas leaks and explosions caused by the "hydrogen embrittlement" effect have become the main bottleneck for the large-scale application of hydrogen energy.

3. A severe shortage of hydrogen refueling stations

According to data from Oil Guest Network, by the end of 2021, the number of power battery charging stations worldwide had reached 2.354 million, and even though fuel vehicles are gradually declining, the number of fuel stations still stands at around 700,000. In comparison, the number of existing hydrogen refueling stations is a meager 872.

Conclusion: In the layout of hydrogen combustion, BYD is already on the way

Perhaps it is because of the various challenges in the hydrogen production industry that Volvo has postponed the market launch of hydrogen combustion heavy trucks to 2030, but this does not prevent it from making a splash.

After all, compared to existing pure electric trucks, Volvo's introduction of a thousand-kilometer range is indeed a bold move. However, it is too early to say that Geely's hydrogen fuel cell electric heavy trucks will replace BYD's pure electric heavy trucks.

In April of this year, BYD has already applied for related patents in the areas of hydrogen storage equipment and hydrogen exchange technology. It can be seen that the breakthrough in hydrogen combustion technology is not limited to Geely; BYD has been actively "responding to the challenge" and has achieved results.

As the "twin heroes of domestic automobile brands," we are pleased to see the two private entrepreneurs, Wang Chuanfu and Li Shufu, continue their healthy competition.