Hydrogen-Powered Electric Trucks Road-tested

Emitting only water vapour, hydrogen-powered fuel cell trucks will be an important part of Volvo Trucks’ zero exhaust emission product portfolio and the vehicles have recently passed a significant milestone – being test-driven on public roads.

Last year, Volvo Trucks showcased its fuel cell electric trucks for the first time. These zero exhaust emission trucks use hydrogen to produce their own electricity onboard – making them suitable for longer transport assignments.

Now, the trucks have been tested on public roads for the first time. But not just any public road. To make it extra-challenging, the tests have been conducted above the Arctic Circle in the north of Sweden – in an extremely cold climate.

“Trucks are operating seven days a week and in all types of weather. The harsh conditions on public roads in northern Sweden, with ice, wind and lots of snow, make an ideal testing environment,” says Helena Alsiö, VP Powertrain Product Management at Volvo Trucks. “I am pleased to say that the tests are going well, confirming those we carried out before, both digitally and on our confined test track close to Gothenburg.”

Fuel cell electric trucks powered by hydrogen will be especially suitable for longer distances and when using only batteries isn’t an option: for example, in rural areas with no charging infrastructure.

Commercially available in the second half of this decade

Volvo currently offers the industry’s broadest product line-up of battery electric trucks, with six models in series production, catering to a wide variety of transport routes in and between cities. The fuel cell electric trucks will be available in the second half of this decade. Tests with hauliers will start a few years before the commercial launch. To speed up the development, Volvo Group has joined forces with Daimler to develop and produce fuel cell systems that are tailor-made for heavy-duty vehicles. For hauliers who want to offer zero exhaust emission transport already, Volvo Trucks currently offers six different battery electric models as well as trucks that run on renewable fuels, such as biogas.

“We need to act now in order to stop global warming. Regardless of the transport assignments or where in the world our customers are operating, waiting is not an option. In a few years, our customers will be able to completely eliminate CO2 exhaust emissions from their trucks,” says Roger Alm, President of Volvo Trucks.

Fact-file: Volvo’s hydrogen-powered fuel cell trucks will use two fuel cells with a capacity to generate 300 kW of electric power. Green hydrogen is an endless resource that is produced by using renewable energy sources, such as wind, water and sun.

Battery Charger Production Commences

Delta-Q Technologies, a leader in battery charging solutions for electric vehicles and industrial equipment, has announced that its innovative mid-power charger, the XV3300, is now in full-scale production. With its unique 3-in-1 design, this highly efficient charging system integrates a 3.3 kW battery charger, a 500 W DC-DC converter to power the vehicles’ auxiliary loads, and an EV charging station interface.

These key features, encased in a ruggedized IP67 design, provide OEMs with an attractive package for simplifying electrification of their off-road applications.

“No other 3.3 kW charger on the market also includes a DC/DC converter for auxiliary DC loads and an EVSE charging interface in such a compact size,” said Mourad Chergui, Senior Product Manager with Delta-Q. “As we start full-scale production, we can begin to fulfil the substantial demand we received since we first announced the initial development.”

The 3.3 kW charging solution is available in 58.8, 65, and 120-volt DC models and is scalable, allowing OEMs to stack up to three chargers for power levels up to 10 kW. The XV3300 uses complex algorithms to deliver a precise charge to batteries of various chemistries and voltages, maximizing battery life and optimizing charge time.

Key features and benefits of the XV3300 charger include:

● High Reliability: The XV3300 battery charger is compact, rugged, and IP67-rated. It is tested for automotive-grade shock and vibration. Its fully sealed aluminium die-cast enclosure protects the charger from dust, liquids, and the effects of immersion in up to one meter of water.
● Enhanced Protection: The XV3300 is a low-voltage charger that optimally charges all battery chemistries and nominal voltages between 48 V to 120 V. It is also protected against short circuits, over-voltage, and over-temperature to ensure safe operation.
● Flexible Power Options: The XV3300 is scalable and can be paralleled to provide between 3.3 kW to 10 kW of power for faster-charging options. The charger is also available as an on-board and off-board charger, providing OEMs with additional flexibility.
● Integrated DC-DC converter: It provides auxiliary power to operate vehicle accessories such as air-conditioners, controllers, lights, turn signals, navigation, and communication devices. It also eliminates the need for an external DC-DC converter, saving OEMs and equipment operators space and cost.
● EV Charging Station Interface: The XV3300 complies with SAE J1772 (levels 1 and 2) and IEC 61851 (modes 2 and 3) to charge from standard EVSE AC charging stations across North America and Europe. This feature provides end-users more charging options and greater vehicle flexibility.

Samsara Launches Sustainable Fleet Management Solution

Samsara Inc. (NYSE: IOT), the pioneer of the Connected Operations™ Cloud, today introduced its Sustainable Fleet Management solution. This evolution of Samsara’s existing fuel efficiency and electric vehicle (EV) offerings is designed to empower customers with additional data-driven insights so they can reduce emissions, jumpstart electrification, and meet their sustainability goals.

Policymakers around the world are launching zero-emission vehicle programs and setting emissions reduction targets that directly impact commercial fleets across a number of industries. Additionally, fuel costs and growing social and investor demands for more sustainable operations are influencing leaders to better track and report on their progress toward these milestones and in some cases, accelerate fleet electrification. This complex transition will require long-term planning, foresight, and data-driven decisions. Not to mention, every organization will have its own unique challenges depending on its size and business objectives.

“Electric vehicles have the potential to significantly reduce environmental impact knowing that transportation is a leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions across the globe. With the right technology infrastructure, it is possible in various operations to do this without compromising your supply chain,” explained Tim Campbell, Managing Director and Commercial Vehicle Decarbonization Consultant at Campbells Consultancy. “Commercial fleet electrification has yet to reach an inflection point but with increased regulatory incentives and reporting requirements, preparedness for this operational shift remains critical.”

Samsara’s Sustainable Fleet Management solution is designed to support customers along every step of their journey toward more sustainable operations. New and enhanced features announced today include:
• Fuel & Energy Hub, acting as the one-stop shop for mixed fuel fleets – including Internal Combustion Engine (ICE), EV, and hybrid vehicles – to ensure their drivers and assets perform optimally to support sustainability goals. With this new dashboard, operations leaders can visualize an entire fleet’s performance while gathering actionable insights into fuel economy, cost, and consumption to direct change with confidence and precision. Fuel & Energy Hub is now available in open beta.
• Sustainability Report, allowing customers to visualize their fleet emissions and monitor output across sites and vehicles to pinpoint improvement areas. This report also provides insight into current and predicted fleet emissions over time, so customers can set more accurate targets and track progress against their sustainability goals. Sustainability Report is now available in open beta.
• Charge Control, combatting driver range anxiety by managing real-time EV charging at scale and easily identifying charging issues. Now, customers can create custom charging profiles by groups or by individual vehicles and receive notifications for irregularities. Charge Control will be available in open beta this summer.
• EV Suitability Report, providing customers with a tailored list of ICE vehicles within their fleet that are most suitable for EV transition. As an evolution of Samsara’s existing Fleet Electrification Report, this new report now includes assessment for all vehicle types and allows customers to configure electrification criteria for advanced recommendations. EV Suitability Report is now generally available.

Samsara customers can now leverage these features alongside the platform’s existing Fuel & Energy Report, Driver Efficiency Report, Idling Events Report, Fleet Benchmarks Report, and more.

“At M Group Services, we’re committed to achieving a 50% reduction in direct carbon emissions by 2030 and reaching net zero before 2050,” said Shaun Stephenson, Interim Managing Director at M Group Services Plant & Fleet Solutions. “Samsara helps us achieve those goals, giving us the data and tools we need to shift to more eco-friendly energy sources and empowering our drivers to be more aware of their impact on the environment.”

Today, Samsara also released its annual Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) report titled “Building a safer and more sustainable world.” This report details its progress to date and the principles that guide the company’s ESG commitments, including transparency and accountability, data-driven solutions, and empowering its people and communities.

“To provide an accurate assessment of their ESG momentum, organizations need a simple way to analyse data points across their entire operations. We’re hearing this more often from our customers as they look for technology partners to track and report progress toward these goals,” said Jeff Hausman, Chief Product Officer at Samsara. “With this new solution, we’re able to provide our customers with fuel economy, vehicle utilization, and emissions insights that will help them better understand their opportunity for improvement, and take action.”

Fast-track HGV Decarbonisation with Renewable Biomethane

CNG Fuels, Europe’s leading supplier of renewable biomethane for heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), today announces it will acquire a majority stake in Renewable Transport Fuel Services Limited (RTFS), the largest renewable biomethane sourcing company for UK transport.

A new holding company, ReFuels, has been established to better reflect the growing scope of the business. ReFuels combines CNG Fuels’ rapidly growing UK network of public access Bio-CNG refuelling stations with RTFS’s upstream biomethane sourcing activities to create one of Europe’s largest fully integrated renewable biomethane suppliers for heavy transport.

Philip Fjeld, CEO of ReFuels and CNG Fuels said: “Running trucks on Bio-CNG has now become “business as usual” for fleet operators and CNG trucks are being adopted en masse UK-wide as fleet operators recognise Bio-CNG as the most cost-effective and lowest carbon alternative fuel to diesel available today. In 2022 alone, we saw dispensed volume increase by 62% compared to 2021 and we expect to surpass this growth rate in 2023.

“Acquiring a majority stake in Renewable Transport Fuel Service enables us to become a fully-integrated supplier of 100% sustainable and renewable biomethane – from the producer down to the dispenser nozzle. Under our new ReFuels structure, we are very well-positioned to accelerate our sustainable growth rate and help the sector decarbonise even faster”.

ReFuels will keep the CNG Fuels brand name for its Bio-CNG refuelling station network, to maintain its dominant UK brand profile. The company serves more than 80 individual customer fleets, including household brands such as Amazon, Royal Mail, Aldi, Waitrose, Warburtons and EVRi, amongst many others. Around 1,300 HGVS refuel at its stations daily and this number is expected to reach more than 2,000 trucks by this time next year based on confirmed orders from its customers.

CNG Fuels currently has ten stations in operation, enabling low carbon deliveries from Inverness to Cornwall. Three further sites are in construction, with four more going into construction by the end of Q3 2023. Most sites are owned in its successful joint venture with Foresight Group, CNG Foresight. The 10 existing sites can refuel around 5,000 high mileage HGVs per day, and the new sites will increase total capacity to around 8,500 HGVs per day by the middle of 2024, enabling 5% of the UK’s heaviest truck fleet to access biomethane along the UK’s major trucking routes.

The acquisition of RTFS will further strengthen the business’s capability to meet its customers’ growing appetite for bio-CNG and will also provide significant benefits to biomethane producers who will now have long-term direct access to the downstream customer demand.

CNG Fuels was established in 2014 and is today the UK market leader for the supply of Bio-CNG (renewable and sustainable biomethane fuel) for commercial vehicles. Its gas is sourced entirely from renewable and sustainable biomethane, which is cheaper and emits less carbon well-to-wheel than any other HGV fuel. The biomethane is made from a waste feedstock, approved under the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation RTFO), and generates Renewable Transport Fuel Certificates (RTFC).

Later this year, the company will offer carbon neutral biomethane derived from manure at the same price as the renewable biomethane fuel it currently supplies. It also consulting on how its network of refuelling stations can best accommodate low-carbon hydrogen and battery electric technologies for HGVs, so that it can support customers when these become commercially viable.

STILL Converts Service Vehicles to Electric

When it comes to sustainability, the Hamburg-based intralogistics provider STILL is once again setting an example: In a pilot project, two service fleet vehicles will initially be converted to electric drive. More are expected to follow once the test phase is completed successfully.

Not only since the “Fridays for Future” demonstrations and the current energy crisis has social awareness for climate protection and sustainability been increasing rapidly. “As a matter of fact, we are being asked more and more frequently by our customers about our sustainability efforts. I am all the more pleased to know that we can answer questions on this topic with a clear conscience,” says Frank Müller, Senior Vice President STILL Brand Management. But this awareness at STILL did not merely come about when the topic was the subject of lively debate on all sides. “Rather, it is an integral part of our corporate DNA,” Frank Müller continues, “that is why we will not be satisfied with what we have achieved so far. Our goal is zero emissions throughout the entire supply chain.”

“Be electrified!” for real
Back in the middle of last year, the intralogistics provider already set up charging stations for electric vehicles on the premises of its Hamburg headquarters. In keeping with the STILL slogan “Be electrified!”, apart from the electrically powered company vehicles, employees and visitors can also charge their electric cars there. The electricity required for the charging stations – like the rest of the electricity, by the way – is supplied by STILL from ‘green’ sources. ” We are thus making an important contribution to reducing CO2 emissions with our charging stations,” explains Stefan Sanny, Senior Director Facility Management & Technical Services.

Pilot project pushes sustainability strategy
With the introduction of the first electrically powered service vehicles, STILL is taking the next step in its sustainability strategy. For an initial period of one year, data is to be collected within a pilot project on how these alternative drives are compatible with STILL’s service philosophy, which is as ambitious as it is demanding. Stefan Sanny: “During this time, we will gain experience and information that we will then evaluate in great detail. This will give us answers to many of our questions, such as: How well does our service perform in rural areas with a less than ideal charging infrastructure? What ranges can be achieved with the charged vehicles? How do different weather conditions affect the range of the e-vehicles?”

Committed to customers and the environment
Based on this experience, STILL will then decide how to further expand the electrified service fleet in the future. Frank Müller: “However, we will do everything in our power to ensure that we succeed in balancing our sustainability goals with our high service standards. After all, we feel committed to our customers as well as to protecting the environment.”

STILL offers customised intralogistics solutions and implements the intelligent teamwork of forklift trucks and warehouse technology, software and services. The achievement created by the company’s founder Hans Still in 1920 through a large amount of creativity, entrepreneurial spirit and quality quickly developed into a strong brand well-known throughout the world. Today around 9,000 qualified staff in research and development, production, marketing and service are involved for the sole purpose of fulfilling customers’ needs throughout the whole world. The keys to the company’s success are highly efficient products ranging from sector-specific complete offers for large and small enterprises to computer-assisted logistics programs for efficient warehouse and materials flow management.

DB Schenker to Deploy MAN eTrucks

DB Schenker, one of the world’s leading logistics service providers, has signed an agreement with commercial vehicle manufacturer MAN Truck & Bus to become the first customer to adopt the new MAN eTruck. DB Schenker will add 100 new MAN low liner and swap body trucks to its fleet by 2026. The first vehicles are to be handed over in the first half of 2024.

Cyrille Bonjean, Head of Land Transport at DB Schenker Europe, said: “We want to build up practical experience with e-trucks as early as possible. In this way, we can quickly create an offer for the business community to make supply chains more climate-friendly. That’s why it was important for us to receive the first MAN eTrucks. This brings us another step closer to our goal to be net zero on the road in land transport by 2040.”

“DB Schenker and MAN are embarking together on the road to an electric future. We are very pleased to have our first customer for the new eTruck. Demand in the market for this all-electric vehicle is already enormous. The topic is now really taking off, partly because more and more of our customers are setting extremely ambitious decarbonization targets. This has a direct impact on logistics chains. However, we will only succeed in achieving a sustainable mobility turnaround in heavy goods traffic with the appropriate political support. Among other things, this relates to the rapid development of the charging infrastructure and also the further design of the funding framework for the acquisition of electric trucks,” said Alexander Vlaskamp, CEO of MAN Truck & Bus.

eTruck from Munich

The first MAN eTrucks will be produced in a small series in the first half of 2024 on the production line at the company’s headquarters in Munich. With the signing of the agreement, DB Schenker is the first pilot customer for these eTrucks. The logistics service provider wants to gain practical experience with the product as early as possible. This also includes setting up its own charging infrastructure, intelligent route planning, and other digital services from MAN Digital Solutions such as eManager, ServiceCare, and MAN Driver App. DB Schenker is therefore supported by 360° consulting from MAN Transport Solutions, including route analysis, charging strategy, charging infrastructure planning, and energy demand optimization.

The first MAN eTrucks for DB Schenker in 2024 will be volume semitrailer tractors, so-called ultra-semitrailer tractors. The reduced semitrailer height of around 950 mm makes it possible to transport volume trailers with an interior height of 3 meters electrically. The other electric trucks to be delivered in 2025 and 2026 are planned as ultra-semitrailer tractors and swap body trucks.

 

Digitization Improved Profits and Resilience for Logistics Businesses

The UK’s transportation, manufacturing and logistics industries are accelerating digital technology adoption in the face of ongoing supply chain disruption, labour shortages and unsustainable increases in fuel costs. That’s according to new research carried out by Samsara with 1,500 operational leaders, including 200 in the UK, which reveals companies are focused on strengthening their operational resilience.

As fuel prices reach record highs, the new Samsara State of Connected Operations Report, reveals 27% of operations leaders in the UK have implemented technologies including artificial intelligence (AI) cameras, asset tracking, telematics and automation. This is expected to double to 58% by the end of this year and reach 90% by the end of 2023. The research reveals clear benefits to this technology investment too, with 95% of UK operations leaders who have digitally transformed their physical operations confirming this is improving their ability to weather disruptions, and 96% reporting increased net profits.

“When it comes to the physical operations that power our global economy, we are at a tipping point,” said Philip van der Wilt, VP & General Manager, Samsara, EMEA. “By accelerating digitisation, UK firms working in transport and logistics can connect their operations and access the real-time data they need to manage their business more effectively and efficiently.”

The Samsara report also reveals the key areas of prioritisation among UK operations leaders:
• 58% are increasing the monitoring of their powered assets such as lorries and vans to tackle issues such as engine idle time, fuel efficiency, and maintenance

• 50% are looking to accelerate their transition to electric vehicles (EVs) in the wake of rising fuel costs and the increasing availability of EVs and associated infrastructure

• 82% want to break down their organisational data to gain centralised visibility of all their operational data

“In the face of supply chain disruptions, labour shortages, and rising costs, operational agility is more important than ever. From planning routes more efficiently, improving fuel economy and introducing pre-emptive maintenance schedules, digitally transforming fleet-based operations can make a tangible difference to the bottom line,” van der Wilt added.

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