FCEV GETS HEAVY
LONG-HAUL FEASIBILITY PROVEN IN THE FIELD
Range, range, range. No one wants an electric vehicle that conks out halfway there.
Your average driver can take or leave it when it comes to EVs, at least for now. But for industries like logistics, looking to meet corporate and mandated sustainability targets while staying on those critical shipping schedules, the struggle is real.
It’s big news that a Nikola hydrogen fuel cell tractor-trailer made the trip from Edmonton to Calgary, Canada without having to refuel, and then made the return trip, on that same fuel load. That’s a total of 519 kilometers (322 miles), and the driver didn’t even have to keep a close eye on the gauge. It used only 61% of the hydrogen on board.
That puts it well within Nikola’s stated range of up to 500 miles. But had refueling been required, it would have taken only 20 minutes, according to the Phoenix-based innovator.
Of course, the goal right now is to get emissions-free trucks on the road, doing real deliveries, without having to wait for a fueling infrastructure.
A driver from Bison Transport, with 27 years of experience, made the trip on January 24 for the Alberta Motor Transport Association, a nonprofit that works to advance safety and policy in the commercial transportation industry. The conditions were a test in themselves. Temperatures ranged from -11 to 0 Celsius (12 to 32 Fahrenheit) as the Class 8 made the total 6-hour drive on the Queen Elizabeth II Highway.
The 26,000 pound (11,793 kilograms) truck was hauling an empty trailer weighing 14,000 pounds (6,359 kilograms). The plan is to do it again with a full trailer.
It’s the first zero-emissions vehicle tested in Alberta and has proven to be up to the task of long-haul runs. It is expected to be able to handle the 80,000-pound maximum weight for U.S. highways.
Earlier in January, Nikola announced that, under the HYLA brand, it produced 42 Class 8 FCEVs last year, and had wholesaled 35 of them. The trucks are assembled in its Coolidge, Arizona plant, where serial production begins on July 3, followed by a commercial launch on September 28.
“What an effort by our dedicated and passionate team, to create — and deliver — what we believe is the only U.S. designed and assembled Class 8 hydrogen fuel cell electric truck on the road today,” Nikola Motors CEO Steve Girsky stated in a press release. “Our pioneering spirit is what made it possible to wholesale these 35 trucks to our dealers for customers in the U.S. and Canada. We thank our employees, customers and partners for this achievement, and look forward to delivering more trucks in 2024.”
Girsky also noted FCEV customer pilot programs were showing truck uptime at 98%.
Chances are that the first run would have sold out, but three are with a fleet partner that is conducting more field testing. Two are being used for customer demos and to train technicians to service them, and another two are in continued validation and engineering.
