Nikola Motor Company reveals its class 8 tractor design (EV/serial hybrid)

[seifrob]

I dunno. I have watched the podcast where they unveiled the truck. And I dont know. They have some serious looking companies backing them. Didnt check them though. The concept alone is proven ( diesel electric locomotives, tugboats...), the truck looks real, not a prop.The bussiness plan looks, well, i mean, if everything goes by their plans, in 5 years they will have almost monopoly to hydrogen fuel stations and thats something.
So if it is not a vaporware, the questions are:
1) can they really chew such a big chunk of meal?
2) will hydrogen economy ever emerge? They seem to rely on it quite a bit
3) what will PACCAR do with them?
Four years of waiting, I guess.

[oil pan 4]

The only way the hydrogen economy will emerge is if everything else gets used up and nothing better is found.
As far as we can tell the hydrogen economy would be very bad for a lot of people. The cost of hydrogen and anything that uses hydrogen for fuel is going to be so expensive it will be out of reach for most people.
You sure as heck are not going to be able to afford to heat your home with hydrogen unless you are rich.

There are hardly any natural gas fuel stations where natural gas is readily available. So why would hydrogen fuel stations pop up where natural gas would be easier?

Plus existing diesels can be modified to use diesel and natural gas and it appears to have limited success.

Why are people going to buy multi 100,000 dollar rigs that can't go everywhere?
Then are they going to spend millions of dollars building and maintaining fuel stations that will see little to no use for many years?

No part of this makes sense.

[slowmover]

$5-7000/month lease is impressive. Those wanting to drive one best be prepared to run team.

Teams do 5000-miles/wk with drop & hook (Fed-Ex). Never any waits to load or unload. In the gate and back out again. Turn and burn. HOS rules being what they are they'll be back at the home terminal to do their 34-HR reset on weekends.

More miles could be run, but it's unlikely without a system as well managed as the one described. 250k miles per truck per year is a fairly safe bet.

At 750k a truck has lost a huge chunk of reliability. Now prone to all sorts of little evils. Even solo drivers running from home terminal in older trucks can't be forced into roadside downtime as contracts won't allow it.

Other business models running fewer miles mAy not be under same performance pressure. But that lease cost is gigantic.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hydrogen is jumping the shark.

[seifrob]

Just a side thought, but i am still trying to figure out why would someone build 400+ or how many hydrogen pumpstations, when there is no demand and why to ditch proven technology and invest into R&D when you need mature product asap. And I have silly question: in my country when someone built solar powerplant and connected it to grid, state was obligued to buy every watt he produced for next ten years or so, for by state guaranted fixed price. Having PV plant was like having money machine. There were even cases when people were using giant halogens to feed the PV panels. Do you have gov subsidised industry in the U.S? Hydrogen production, green power plants? That would explain quite a bit.

[NeilBlanchard]

Yes, they are planning on building something like 464 hydrogen filling stations around the country. These will cost (at least?) $2 Million each, just for construction of each station. Then there is the hydrogen distribution costs, and the hydrogen itself costs a fair bit.

It is a chicken and egg problem - how do they sell / lease any trucks before they build and supply AT LEAST 50 stations? How long will it take to build those and have the hydrogen available - and can the early truck owners wait that long?

[seifrob]

Thats what confuses me. Why not make first diesel electric hybrid, than CNG electric hybrid, than hydrogen electric? Diesel and CNG pumpstation network is readily available.
Never mind.

[freebeard]

in my country when someone built solar powerplant and connected it to grid, state was obligued to buy every watt he produced for next ten years or so, for by state guaranted fixed price. Having PV plant was like having money machine. There were even cases when people were using giant halogens to feed the PV panels. Do you have gov subsidised industry in the U.S? Hydrogen production, green power plants? That would explain quite a bit.

The USofA is sort of like an EU that works. Each state is a separable case, like countries in your Union. Originally a federated Union, it is currently devolving into mere democracy.

I don't have an overview — the 'buy at retail, sell at retail' scenario was popular but the utilities are not seeing the margin to allow them to maintain the grid, so the future of grid-tied solar is in question.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Some of those Hydrogen supporters might have readen too much of those Jules Verne's stories...

[RustyLugNut]

Originally Posted by seifrob

Thats what confuses me. Why not make first diesel electric hybrid, than CNG electric hybrid, than hydrogen electric? Diesel and CNG pumpstation network is readily available.
Never mind.

You are absolutely right in sketching out the logical plan of designing an advanced Electric Class 8 truck but using an advanced diesel as the first range extending engine. The Achates opposed piston engine, mentioned in another thread, designed by a local firm, would be ideal. Compact and powerful and cleaner running than standard diesels, it would get the company on the map and moving.

The next step would be to leverage the improved Solid Oxide Fuel Cells running on CNG. In a few years, this would have been a good transition range extender.

Both fuels are plentiful and well understood.

Hydrogen, in it's current form, will not be economically viable unless you pull an Apple Corporation and force this "proprietary fuel" on your customer base. This is what NMC is doing. It is a perilous move. We can see it, but for some reason, the leadership of NMC cannot. Unless, they know something we don't.