General Motors Did Not Get The Fuel Cell Truck Memo Either

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General Motors raised eyebrows last week, when it announced a hydrogen fuel cell partnership with the US specialty truck firm Autocar. Apparently that was just the tip of the fuel cell iceberg. GM has just announced a new partnership with another leading truck maker, Komatsu. The new venture is aimed at decarbonizing Komatsu’s gigantic 930E electric drive mining truck. Wait, isn’t that already an electric truck?

A Hydrogen Fuel Cell For Next-Level Electrification

Almost every freight train in the US runs on electric drive, so it’s no surprise to see other heavy duty use cases for electrified mobility, including mining trucks and others that fall into the vocational use category, such as construction, waste hauling and forestry, among others.

The catch is that this type of electric mobility deploys an on-board, diesel-powered generator. In other words, it’s a diesel-electric hybrid system.

Diesel-electric locomotives began to appear in the US about 100 years ago and they quickly caught on, offering improvements in performance and fuel efficiency. A similar calculation is at work for specialized heavy duty trucks deployed in mining, construction, forestry and other heavy industries.

The problem is that diesel-electric drive still produces diesel emissions. In recent years railway stakeholders have begun to introduce batteries and fuel cells to replace diesel fuel. The going has been slow, but the payoff is 100% electrification and zero-emission operations.

Both batteries and fuel cells could remain in play for locomotive and specialty truck decarbonization over the coming years. The main difference is that batteries provide on-board energy storage for electricity produced elsewhere. Fuel cells produce electricity on board, through an interaction between hydrogen and oxygen, facilitated by a catalyst. Like batteries, fuel cells produce no airborne emissions. The only tailpipe emission is water.

A New Hydrogen Fuel Cell For The 930E

The 930E is just one of many diesel-electric vocational trucks on the market today, but GM is apparently banking that the new partnership with Komatsu will set the stage for other firms to scramble for fuel cells. The 930E electric drive mining truck is “the world’s best-selling ultra-class haul truck,” GM emphasized in a press release on Tuesday.

Transitioning to a lower-carbon profile is one benefit for mining companies. GM also cites operational benefits over and above the planet-saving angle.

“Lightweight and quick to refuel, hydrogen fuel cells are ideal for electrifying applications traditionally powered by diesel engines,” GM explains. “Hydrogen provides an effective method to package large quantities of energy onboard the vehicle, without compromising payload carrying capacity.”

The best-selling status of the 930E was not the only reason why GM and Komatsu decided to focus on that particular truck for their first fuel cell partnership. GM notes that the 930E typically runs in the same mine throughout its usable life. That helps to streamline the calculations that go into designing hydrogen fuel stations for the operation.

“These vehicles typically operate at a single mine throughout their life, which simplifies the challenges of sizing and deploying an effective hydrogen refueling infrastructure to service the vehicle fleet,” GM explains.

The Green Hydrogen Angle

GM and Komatsu also appear to anticipate that an on-site hydrogen fuel station would be a more efficient pathway to decarbonizing a mining operation, compared to rigging up new charging station infrastructure for massive battery-powered vehicles.

That remains to be seen, but new green hydrogen technology does open up the potential for producing hydrogen for fuel cells on site, using wind or solar energy to pry hydrogen gas from water. Hydrogen also acts as its own energy storage medium, so an array of lithium-ion batteries would not be needed to smooth out bumps in the availability of renewable energy.

The Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association also notes that quick refueling time could provide fuel cells with an advantage over batteries.

50 Years Of Fuel Cell R&D Pay Off for GM

It will be a couple of years before we know how the new hydrogen fuel cell 930E handles itself. The two partners anticipate powering the truck with 2 megawatts’ worth of GM’s HYDROTEC fuel cells and putting it on to work at Komatsu’s test center in Arizona sometime around the middle of this decade.

The new fuel cell partnership with Autocar could also take a few years to bear fruit, but what’s a few short years when GM notes that it has spent the past five decades exploring the potential for hydrogen fuel cells to power the vehicles of the future.

In addition to Komatsu and Autcar, in recent years GM has hooked up with stakeholders in the aviation and locomotive industries. The company has also been exploring the idea of using solar-powered fuel cells in charging stations for battery EVs.

GM hit a bump in the fuel cell road in 2020 when it ditched a partnership with the US startup Nikola, but now the company is in a good position to take advantage of the US Department of Energy’s new hydrogen hub package, which includes plenty of support for fuel cell trucks.

The Energy Department also gave the hydrogen fuel cell truck field a shoutout when it launched the 2021 SuperTruck 3 program.

The Energy Department, for one, is not picking sides in the battery vs. fuel cell fight, at least not in the area of heavy duty trucks. In March of 2022 the agency’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory released study which concluded that “by 2030, nearly half of medium- and heavy-duty trucks will be cheaper to buy, operate, and maintain as zero emissions vehicles than traditional diesel-powered combustion engine vehicles.”

“Battery electric trucks are expected to become cost-competitive for smaller trucks before 2030 while heavy trucks with less than 500-miles of range are projected to be cost-competitive by 2035,”  NREL elaborated, adding that “hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles are expected to become cost-competitive for long-haul heavy-duty trucks with greater than 500-mile range by 2035.”

There being no such thing as a free decarbonization lunch, fuel cell stakeholders will also need to clean up their supply chains. Currently, natural gas is the primary source of the global hydrogen supply, with coal and waste gasses also playing a role.

The green hydrogen movement — which includes biomass and wastewater as well as water electrolysis — is beginning to offer more sustainable alternatives. Last year GM launched a green hydrogen partnership with the US branch of the Norwegian firm Nel, indicating that the auto maker is seeking opportunities to help accelerate the green hydrogen market (see lots more CleanTechnica GM coverage here).

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Image: “A front 3/4 view of a virtual rendering of Komatsu’s 930E mining truck that will be powered by HYDROTEC fuel cells,” courtesy of Komatsu.