Holes in Scania argument2 Feb 2021 22:42
I think there are several holes in Scania's argument when selecting battery over hydrogen. Here are three of them.
1. They are comparing hydrogen and battery both fed from renewable electricity. They discount that an alternative is hydrogen from fossil, either with or without CCUS. Rightly or wrongly even our Government is backing CCUS as a lower cost source of hydrogen for some time.
Personally when it comes to transition from diesel, and I've said it before, I'd even take hydrogen without CCUS if I had to as it improves local air quality if nothing else. That's still a better direct drop-in displacement of diesel than batteries (from a usage convenience point of view).
2. It follows that their assumption is that the energy for their battery trucks will come from renewable electricity. That won't be the case for many, many years. Renewables will not outpace demand for several years. So if the battery energy comes from the grid it's not squeaky clean either.
3. Having discounted hydrogen from renewables to power their trucks they claim that renewable hydrogen fuel cell recharging stations are important. How can that be? They've already discarded hydrogen from renewables as too expensive so how can it be ok to charge their batteries from it.
There are other holes too, to do with recharging station locating, quantity of rechargers, and grid capability that also blow their argument to pieces but I'll be here all night if I address all their misgivings.
I believe that Scania's logic is fundamentally flawed and their only justification for putting out the press release is an attempt to sway the entire truck market to follow suit and back batteries. Otherwise, what is the point of the press release. If they'd discovered that fuel cell is absolutely a waste of time, why tell your competitors. Why not just let your competitors waste their time, money and resources chasing a dead end. The reason? Without competition from hydrogen, batteries are the defacto winner. On the other hand if Toyota, Hyundai, Volvo or any others see through Scania's lame reasoning and come to market with a successful fuel cell truck with sufficient refuelling infrastructure then it will beat Scania's battery trucks easily through range and rapid refuelling with the resulting in-service availability that logistics operations will continue to need. QED.
Sign In
Follow the stocks
