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 vans set to exchange everything of its present fleet by 2030.
Regardless of gross sales of BMW’s battery electrical beginning to take off, the propeller firm remains to be investing closely in gas cell improvement – from its newest iX5 Hydrogen FCEV idea to, properly, 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 traces.
BMW’s aggressive deployment timeline is, in fact, loaded with issues. For starters, little or no hydrogen is definitely “inexperienced,” and nearly all of conventionally obtainable hydrogen is created utilizing fossil fuels – making it each far much less environmentally sustainable than you may suppose … 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 beneficial house. The benefit of hydrogen is that refueling may be very quick – similar to with standard fuels. The filling stations required for this will likely be put in instantly throughout the completely different manufacturing areas and don’t take up a lot house.
Challenge Supervisor, BMW Regensburg, Katharina Radtke
I don’t suppose 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, whenever you refill a storage tank with a fuel like H or CNG, the fuel heats up because it’s shortly pressured into the tank, inflicting it to increase. Meaning the identical quantity of gas takes up extra bodily house sizzling than it does chilly – and, because the fuel within the tank step by step cools down, it contracts, leaving empty house within the tank.
Meaning you possibly can “quick fill” a hydrogen tank to 100% in a couple of minutes, nevertheless it’ll finally settle again all the way down to about 75-80% full, even if you happen to don’t drive anyplace. You’ll then must “gradual fill” the remaining capability to keep away from the same growth – and that can take hours.
You possibly can see an instance of this phenomenon, beneath, on this interactive infographic from the US Division of Vitality’s Various Fuels Knowledge Heart (AFDC).
Electrek’s Take
In case you possibly can’t learn between the traces, 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 form of begs the query: why make the swap 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 vans.” Vlaskamp added, “At the moment you can not purchase hydrogen for lower than 13 or 14 euros … and it’s not inexperienced. And when we’ve 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 spend money on hydrogen-powered automobile applications? “Solely to check our speculation,” says Vlaskamp (emphasis mine). “We could use hydrogen for transportation in 2035, however provided that there’s sufficient inexperienced hydrogen on the proper worth and the required 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 will likely 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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