Driving on hydrogen in continuous transport, is it possible?
Baas Blijham BV, a company belonging to Transport Group Noord, drives milk for dairy producer FrieslandCampina. Recently with a hydrogen truck. Driving on hydrogen in this case is done with a converted tractor based on a DAF chassis. Holthausen Clean Technologie from Groningen replaced the diesel engine with an electric motor that gets its energy from a fuel cell. That converts hydrogen into electricity for propulsion and the only emission is water vapor.
Dropping out is not an option
So far, nothing new: the principle of drive is the same as in the Toyota Mirai and Hyundai Nexo. Only the consumption conditions are more challenging. Just think: such a tanker combination full of milk weighs dozens of tons and is on the move every day to transport the milk from farmer to factory chilled. Falling out is actually not an option.
Full-fledged combination
The tractor is in front of a tank trailer. Fully loaded, the combination has a total weight of up to 50,000 pounds. There is no limitation in load weight compared to a combination with a diesel tractor.
460 km range
In practice, a range of 460 km on average appears possible with 39 kilograms of hydrogen. Even with frost, a minimum of 400 km of that remained. In practice, refueling takes 15 minutes and the milk truck is very quiet. This is a nice touch because milk collection is mainly in the evening and night.
Hydrogen truck and planning
The hydrogen truck runs full schedule. That is, he is on duty seven days a week and 22 hours a day. With multiple drivers behind the wheel. Intensive use is no problem at all and failures have not occurred. The pilot continues and should yield even more data to eventually optimize and perfect the hydrogen truck.
‘Very useful figures’
“We test with ten different drivers and that gives us very useful figures and we quickly hear what is clear and what needs to be supplemented in the operating instructions. The drivers, owner and we as developer and builder are thickly satisfied,” said Carl Holthausen. How running on hydrogen with a normal passenger car works in practice, we researched and you can read in this article:
Also read: Driving on hydrogen, how practical is it and what does it cost?