4mo ago

France & Germany's economic councils endorse electric trucks over hydrogen

cleantechnica.com

France & Germany’s Economic Councils Endorse Electric Trucks Over Hydrogen - CleanTechnica

Electric Vehicles @slrpnk.net

Sunshine (she/her) @lemmy.ca

5mo ago

France & Germany’s Economic Councils Endorse Electric Trucks Over Hydrogen

cleantechnica.com /2025/04/06/france-germanys-economic-councils-endorse-electric-trucks-over-hydrogen/

16 comments

Article sponsored by battery producers. Or certainly looks this way.
/s
- Nah, it's the power plants & grid managers.
  Private solar panels are reducing electrical grid dependancy and they need home BEV charging to compensate, because they can't monopolize hydrogen production as easy as the grid.
- What makes you think so, or do you say that based on the content alone? I don't have the impression they are pro-battery or against hydrogen, also don't think they would let themselves be paid without mentioning someone did that.
  
  I was sarcastic, now added s.
  Truth to be told I am fed up with the industry pushing electric batteries simply because they already invested in them. We don't have enough raw materials to convert all the cars to battery powered, nevermind the range issues. Hydrogen is the way forward.
The perfect drive train was invented more than twenty years ago by a small Japanese holding company named Toyota
Mating two motor-generators with a combustion engine via planetary gear set allows for 90 percent of the benefits of a pure electric vehicle but with a much smaller battery
They casually get double the mpg of a pure gas vehicle on the highway, and in the city they can drive several miles on batteries
TRUE PRIUS HAS NEVER BEEN TRIED
- The thing is, electric trucks already serve basically all Europe needs. There are mandatory breaks every few hours (4 I believe) which is about the range you get on one 80% charge of current trucks. Meaning they charge, drive, charge and rest, drive, charge and rest and so on. The side benefit being that E-Trucks can haul 40 tons up the mountain without dropping down to 20kph
  
  There are barely enough rest stops in many places of Europe to accommodate truck drivers just taking their mandatory rest breaks. Look at the stops along any busy German highway at night, it's pure pandemonium. There's an estimated 20 000 truck parking spots missing in Germany alone: https://www.adac.de/news/lkw-parken-an-raststaetten/
  Now imagine that every single one of those spots (not the missing ones, not the new ones, all of them - millions) also needs a charging station. That's a monumental undertaking.
  I'm not saying it's impossible, but it'll be extremely hard and would take a lot of time and money. This isn't a "we're halfway there" situation, we haven't even started.
- Plus they still benefit from advances in both battery storage improvements, ICE improvements, and electric infrastructure rollouts.
Hydrogen is such an absurdly expensive and literally explosive fairy story.
Battery electric is here now and isn't just cheaper to run than gas, it's actually cheaper in total cost of ownership.

16 comments