Hydrogen fuel cell for commercial trucks

Ricardo, a global strategic, environmental, and engineering consulting company, supported a California Fuel Cell Partnership in the assessment of H₂ trucks and fuelling stations.

Challenge

California Fuel Cell Partnership (CaFCP) is an industry-government collaboration that aims to accelerate market introduction of fuel cell electric vehicles. One of their key focus areas is enabling adoption of hydrogen fuel cell technology in commercial trucks. Economic assessment of new technologies is important for identifying and overcoming barriers to commercialization and developing a strong business case for customers.

Approach

Ricardo used the following approaches to develop an economic assessment:

• Extended proprietary Total Cost of Ownership Models to estimate life cycle cost and payback period for investments in Fuel Cell Medium/Heavy duty trucks 
• Ricardo created a model comprised with a detailed build-up of capital expenses and operating costs incurred over the ownership period of a conventional or alternative fuel truck
• Ricardo created a toolset supplemented with economic models of refuelling infrastructure that convey insights on capital and operational expenses incurred when installing and operating hydrogen, CNG/LNG and EV charging stations

Recommendations

Key economic metrics such as total cost of ownership, payback period and internal rate of return can be estimated which are important considerations in purchase decisions of commercial fleets.

Results

• The model provides a building block for assessing the economic viability of future vehicles featuring new powertrain technologies including natural gas, battery-electric, hybrid, and hydrogen fuel cells.
• The toolset will help the Fuel Cell Partnership members in developing a consensus view on potential of hydrogen fuel cell technology as an alternative to diesel trucks.