Testing of Mercedes advanced hydrogen truck begins

Daimler Trucks has commenced tests of the first enhanced prototype of its Mercedes-Benz GenH2 hydrogen fuel cell truck, originally unveiled in 2020, marking an important milestone on the path to series production.

The tests are focused on continuous operation, different weather and road conditions, and various driving manoeuvres.

According to Daimler Trucks, the vehicle will also be tested on public roads before the end of the year. Customer trials are scheduled to begin in 2023. The first series-produced GenH2 Trucks are expected to be handed over to customers starting in 2027.

Martin Daum, chairman of Daimler Truck AG, said: “We want to offer our customers the best locally CO2-neutral trucks — powered by either batteries or hydrogen-based fuel-cells, depending on the use case. We’re right on schedule and I’m delighted that the rigorous tests of the GenH2 Truck have started successfully.

“The hydrogen powered fuel cell drive will become in-dispensable for CO2-neutral long-haul road transport in the future. This is also confirmed by our many partners with whom we are working together at full steam to put this technology on the road in series-production vehicles.”

The development engineers at Daimler Trucks are designing the GenH2 Truck so that the vehicle and its components meet the same durability requirements as a comparable conventional Mercedes-Benz Actros. This means 1.2 million kilometres on the road over a period of ten years and a total of 25,000 hours of operation.

During the first few weeks of testing, the vehicle has already covered hundreds of kilometres under continuous load on a road-to-rig test stand and undergone many extreme situations that are based on real-life operating conditions. Examples include emergency braking and kerbstone drives along the test track.

The GenH2 Truck has been newly designed from the ground up. It features completely new components, which the developers are particularly focusing on during the tests. These components include the fuel-cell system, the all-electric powertrain, and all of the associated systems such as the special cooling unit.

Daimler Trucks prefers to use liquid hydrogen because in this state, the energy carrier has a far higher energy density in relation to volume than gaseous hydrogen. As a result, the tanks of a fuel-cell truck using liquid hydrogen are much smaller and, due to the lower pressure, significantly lighter.

This gives the trucks more cargo space and a higher payload. At the same time, more hydrogen can be carried, which significantly increases the trucks’ range.

By the end of the year, the Daimler engineers plan to have the new liquid hydrogen prototype tank system sufficiently mature to be used to continue the ongoing demanding tests of the GenH2 Truck. The vehicle tests will then be conducted exclusively with liquid hydrogen tank systems until the series-production stage is reached.

Until this can be done, the extensive internal testing of the GenH2 Truck will use a gaseous hydrogen tank system as an interim solution.