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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.
OK, we all know Tesla, but what's with all the other alt-fuel vehicle companies using knockoff names? Faraday was bad enough - at least it's named after another electrical pioneer. Nikola didn't even choose a different guy to name their company after.
Although trucks are highly regulated they also happen to be a lot easier to use a platform for this kind of experimentation. For one an extra 1000 pounds isn't going to impact performance (though it will reduce freight capacity). Some truckers tell me just ice and snow can add a couple of thousand pounds to their trucks in the winter. Anyway plenty of room to play around with different drive trains and power systems, which is what this company seem to have done.
I've always been skeptical of hydrogen as a means of of energy storage, but if the numbers are right this is pretty good, for a range of about 800 miles. 1000 hp and 2000 ft-pounds of torque are definitely good numbers for a class 8 truck. The truck I drive sometimes is only 500 hp and 1800 ft-pounds of torque, and pulls 63500 KG GVW (only on flat roads and not fast). So this should easily go up and down mountains. And with no transmission to shift, the power will be smooth and efficient. I'm thinking they've had their prototypes on the road for some time now, so it will be interesting to see how quickly they can really bring this to actual market (start leasing them to real drivers and real companies).
The articles I've read don't talk a lot about how the refueling is done and pouring liquid cryogenic fluids is pretty dangerous. So we shall see. And we don't know much about other details like if the drive train can act as a big engine brake. It's pretty funny how the media reacts to things like this. Instead of focusing on the truly interesting aspects of the truck like the power cell and drive train, they focus on the cab and how it has a nice sleeper with a microwave oven! Hilarious.
Anyway, coming from someone who actually has a CDL and drives trucks on occasion, I'm quite interested to see where this goes.
These guys have finally designed the world's best 2005 Semi Truck.
Also one or two full-size beds will be included inside the vehicle's enormous cab.
For who? Are they trying to milk the last owner operators? Walmart quibbles with OEMs over 0.1 MPG claims. The second they can, every single Walmart truck is going to be replaced by an autonomous driver, even if it's just between cities. (Given where most Walmarts are located it'll replace 90% of their need for drivers). They spent a lot of time and money designing something that will never get used by time this hits the market.
, the vehicle will provide nearly double the power of the current-gen diesel-powered semis/articulated lorries
And? Truck OEMs are moving to Natural Gas. Locomotives are too.
Everyone thought Warren Buffet was crazy buying a rail company in 2009. Turns out that he owns Northern Natural Gas the largest interstate natural gas pipeline system in the United States. Northern Natural Gas' pipeline system stretches across 11 states, from Southern Texas to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, providing access to five of the major natural gas supply regions in North America. (At which point he starts to sound a bit more like Rockefeller).
10 years ago Natural Gas was a 3rd party add on. Now the engine OEMs are selling it in addition to dual fuel engines (NG/Diesel). That goes for engines for a small tractor up through their largest stationary engines.
Natural gas is:
With a tiny compressor you could come home and 'fill up' at night..
If I was an investor the 2 power sources for vehicles going forward are going to be natural gas & batteries. You cut out a lot of gasoline and diesel refineries. You can run locomotives and semis on natural gas (since batteries alone can't (yet)).
Hydrogen, in 2016, is a non-starter. First you can't just 'get' it. We're quickly getting an EV grid and the Natural Gas 'grid' is already there.
Finally it's not about horsepower. Those Semi truck engines "only" pushing a few hundred HP can easily put out more. The Caterpillar D11 bulldozer only has 850 HP. The reason they're de-tuned is they're designed to do that 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for a million miles. You can easy tune them up to easily out do the 1,000 horsepower and 2,000 foot-pounds. [And why geeks that aren't into machinery shouldn't just look at specs like they're computers.]
By 2020 this is going to look like a dinosaur.
You can buy it from all those surplus redundancy stations.
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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
It's not entirely vaporware. I've seen retrofitted fuel-cell powered semi trucks on the road. They exist now.
This is merely a fancier, more ground-up approach.
Sig for hire.
Also one or two full-size beds will be included inside the vehicle's enormous cab.- For who?
Have you really no clue about what trucking does or how it works?
Yes trucks will be self-driving in the future. But the truck driver is not just a driver, he is also a GUARD. Do you really not understand what a fantastic target fully automated trucks would be, when they would obviously be programmed to stop for any blockage in the road?
As for the gas angle, natural gas is OK but has nothing on Hydrogen, which will be the mass replacement for the gasoline engine.
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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.
Are you telling me they can't put it in a tank designed to store liquid hydrogen?
A tank designed to contain liquid hydrogen has to be kept *cold*, *very cold*. Failure to do so causes the tank to rupture, and you will get a massive conflagration if not outright explosion.
Cryogenics plants are not small, or light. If you change that from liquid hydrogen to compressed hydrogen gas, that is now a factor of 40, not 4.
Compressed hydrogen gas actually makes lithium ion look safe by comparison. Liquid Hydrocarbon fuels are not explosive under vary many scenarios, usually requiring a heated pressurized environment. Many types of hydrocarbon fuels wont even burn under normal STP. Hydrogen gas by contrast loves to burn, and is a mess to contain (leaking hydrogen has no smell, and it is perfectly possible for a container to leak hydrogen but be "air tight" to everything else).
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
I guess that's why they don't use tanks and use fuel cells instead then.
Just in case you actually don't know what a fuel cell is: Its an electricity generator, not a fuel storage device. You still have to have something to store the fuel in (a tank). The fuel is then transfered into the Fuel cell slowly where it is converted into electricity and waste products (water in the case of hydrogen fuel cells).
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
No American tanks have turbines. Everyone else stuck with much cheaper diesel's, that dont break down at the first sign of a bit of sand, require far less maintenance and are much cheaper to run.
1. And? You forgot the minus signs for F and C.
Like you're the only one who figured that out. So much for my quick & dirty wikipedia cut & paste job. Crucify me. :)
2. Are you telling me they can't put it in a tank designed to store liquid hydrogen?
Read my subsequent post about what that tank would be like.
3. OK.
Yeah, Ok.
4. So what, it's not like having a 4x bigger tank is a problem, or by factor of 4 did you mean 1000x as it could be read.
Your post seems to be trying to say it's not possible without actually having any good reasons why.
Read my comment below about size & weight requirements for the tank. At best hydrogen is tricky stuff to store and tends to be most practical when done at large scale. It is bad enough working with hydrogen gas...cryogenic liquid hydrogen is a whole different level of crazy. I can't begin to list all the problems in a reasonable amount of time. Even seasoned NASA engineers have problems dealing with the stuff.
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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