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Nikola Motor Company Reveals Hydrogen Fuel Cell Truck With Range of 1,200 Miles (valuewalk.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ValueWalk: Nikola Motor Company just unveiled a huge class 8 truck which will run on hydrogen fuel cells. Nikola claimed that the truck's operational range will be as much as 1,200 miles (1,900 km), and it will be released in 2020. Nikola designed the Nikola One for long-haul transport across a large landmass. The truck will deliver over 1,000 horsepower and 2,000 foot-pounds of torque. Provided these claims are true, the vehicle will provide nearly double the power of the current-gen diesel-powered semis/articulated lorries, notes Ars Technica. The leasing cost of the trucks will include the fuel price, servicing costs and warranty, but exactly how the lease will work is not known now, notes Ars Technica. The company says it has already accepted nearly $3 billion in future orders. A fully-electric drivetrain which gets power from high-density lithium batteries runs the vehicle, and a hydrogen fuel cell charges the batteries on the go. Its reach is presently limited, as hydrogen fueling stations currently exist in only small numbers. This made Nikola decide to construct a network of 364 hydrogen fueling stations across the U.S. and Canada, just like Tesla with its network of Superchargers. Milton claims it will come with a smart dashboard which has the capability of picking the most cost-efficient route for drivers. Also one or two full-size beds will be included inside the vehicle's enormous cab. It will have other luxuries and necessities as well, such as Wi-Fi, a refrigerator, 4G LTE connectivity, freezer, a 40-inch curved 4K TV with Apple TV and a microwave.
Still Bull. Energy density of hydrogen is 120 MJ/kg, Propane has 49.6 MJ/kg However the density of liquid hydrogen is 70.8 kg/m^3, while propane is 493 kg/m^3 at STP. Propane wins at 24.5 GJ/m^3, and liquid hyroden is only 8.5 GJ/m^3. Deisel for reference is 35.8 GJ/m^3
1. Liquid hydrogen boils above 20.28 Kelvin/423.17 F/252.87 C.
2. It is impractical to store liquid hydrogen on a truck.
3. Hydrogen is typically stored as a compressed gas or as a metal hydride.
4. Liquid hydrogen has less energy density by volume than hydrocarbon fuels such as gasoline by approximately a factor of four.
I don't say that gas turbines are generally great, they are good for certain conditions, otherwise people wouldn't try to put them into tanks since, oh, about 1943 with the Turbopanther.
T-84 is a diesel tank because it is what Ukraine has a factory for - before 1991 they were only able to build diesel T-80 in first place because the Malyshev factory can only build their two stroke diesel. That is also the reason why Ukraine barely uses the T-72 tanks - they cannot build the original engine and they would have to downgrade them with that peculiar two stroke diesel (basically the old and problematic T-64 engine with an additional cylinder) as well.
As for T-90, it is not a successor of T-80, but a successor of T-72, hence it never was a gas turbine tank in first place. The actual successor of T-90, the Black Eagle prototype, had, in fact, a gas turbine engine.
Diesel engines are much cheaper and far less thirsty, so economics are one of the reasons why diesel engines won. The other reason is that gas turbines suck (no pun intended) in the so called "hot and high" settings. This is why aircraft versions intended to take off in airports that are located at high altitudes or in very warm areas usually have more powerful engines. That is not an option for a tank, hence their engines feel anemic in the same conditions.
Like I said, gas turbines are great when it's really freezing outside, when diesel engines need a lot of time and effort to start, the fuel and the coolant lines are frozen shut and have to be thawed first. In these conditions a gas turbine tank can be started in mere minutes, and actually performs better than average thank to dense air and good cooling. Gas turbine tanks also have an excellent power to weight ratio because a diesel engine with the same output has easily twice the weight of a gas turbine. This is the reason why M1 is a gas turbine tank - it is so obese that a diesel engine would make it a Tiger 2. The Leopard 2 engine that has the same performance as the M1 engine weighs 2200 kg compared to the 1100 kg of the M1 engine. It is also twice as wide.
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