Fuel Cell Production: Look out batteries – there’s a train coming…
In the world of electric vehicles, the tectonic plates are shifting. Recent announcements demonstrate that the industry is putting big investments into fuel cell powertrains – and those investments are mostly for production, not R&D.
Bosch has confirmed it will invest almost €2.5 billion in hydrogen fuel cell technology by 2026, expecting to generate roughly €5 billion in sales by 2030, when it expects 20% of all trucks over 6-tonnes will use fuel cell powertrains.
Toyota says it has orders for 100,000 powertrains for delivery by 2030 and thinks further orders for commercial vehicles could raise that figure to 200,000.
BMW was ferrying VIPs around last weekend’s Festival of Speed in a fleet of fuel cell X5s, prior to the expected launch of the model later this decade.
Meanwhile, VW has confirmed it is reducing production of BEVs due to customer resistance.
The announcements from Bosch and Toyota are great news for the whole fuel cell industry, because the major issue holding back fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) is the cost of the fuel cell itself. Once major players start manufacturing in volume, the cost of a fuel cell will fall to the cost of petrol engine by the early 2030s.
In terms of where we see the future of FCEVs, Viritech studiously avoids the argument about “My FCEV is better than your BEV”. We see electrified vehicles as being like a Venn diagram, where fuel cells dominate at the heavy end of the market (e.g. 44-tonne trucks) and BEVs dominate at the light end of the market (e.g. superminis like the VW Polo). In the middle of the market (larger cars and vans), the two powertrains will overlap, and that will create healthy competition.
Whether BEV or FCEV is a more suitable solution will depend on the mileage and personal preferences of each driver. For those who mostly do short trips, and can recharge at home, a BEV works well. For those who do high mileages and/or cannot easily recharge their cars, fuel cells are the obvious solution.
The recent developments are also great news for Viritech. Our industry leading Tri-Volt™ energy management technology significantly increases the FCEV’s overall energy efficiency by optimising energy production and deployment between battery, fuel cell and regenerative braking.
With preparations for the mass production of fuel cells now underway, Viritech is accelerating its development pipeline of related technologies - including DC-DC Converters, high C-rate battery packs, its Tri-Volt™ energy management system and Type-5 hydrogen pressure vessels – while also putting in place licensing agreements with leading Tier-1 manufacturers in North America, Europe and Asia.
Timothy Lyons, Founder and CEO of Viritech said, “In the two years since we launched Viritech, the automotive industry consensus that battery electric vehicles were the universal answer has been eroding rapidly, and these recent announcements from Bosch and Toyota are another milestone towards the broad adoption of FCEVs. Any doubts about the adoption of hydrogen fuel cell powertrains in the automotive industry now sit firmly in the past, because the evidence is here - it is happening right now.”