Daimler Truck has announced the completion of winter mountain tests of Mercedes-Benz GenH2 fuel cell truck prototypes. The tests took place on the Simplon Pass in the Swiss canton of Valais during cold winter weather.
This is the second generation of Mercedes-Benz GenH2 prototypes, the first announcement of which took place back in 2020. Consumer testing was planned to take place in 2023, and the start of serial production of trucks is scheduled for the second half of the 2020s. During the 2023 tests, the Mercedes-Benz GenH2 Truck test drove 1,047 km on a single fuel cell refueling.
During the tests in the Swiss Alps, the interaction of all the main components of the truck was tested, including the fuel cell, high-voltage battery, electric drive and temperature control. Particular attention was paid to the use of Predictive Powertrain Controls and topography-dependent cruise control. The aim of the tests was to effectively use the battery in combination with the fuel cell both for uphill driving and for energy recovery when driving downhill.
Two CO2-free hydrogen trucks completed an extensive test program with a gross vehicle weight of up to 40 tons over a period of 14 days. In total, they covered 6,500 kilometers of mountain roads with a total elevation gain of 83,000 meters, including 20 kilometers of gradients of 10 to 12 percent (a total of 1,600 kilometers). The fuel cell trucks were refueled using an Air Products mobile hydrogen refueling station installed at the Valais test site.
One of the main problems in deploying large-scale production of trucks and regular cars on hydrogen fuel cells is the lack of precisely this type of filling stations. Daimler Truck hopes that by 2030 at least the main European transport corridors will be covered with networks of such stations. As of now, only 187 such filling stations are operating in Europe, with a small number of seats at each.