Driving demand in the hydrogen transportation sector is essential to accelerating the adoption of hydrogen-powered vehicles and unlocking its full potential in decarbonising mobility.
“End users will always choose a cheaper vehicle,” explained Hannah Bryson-Jones, Director at Delta H Consulting. “We need to see more demand creation by 2030 because at the moment fleet operators are willing to trial one or two vehicles in their fleets, but it’s more expensive.
“This isn’t a surprise, we’re trying to compete with a technology that has been in commercialisation for 100 years so we don’t have time to wait for this to get to rock bottom costs. We’re going to have to scale up while we bring costs down.”
Charlie Ker, Senior Director for Business Development at Cespira, reiterated this point, adding that deploying hydrogen in proven systems such as internal combustion engines (ICE) will “advance hydrogen technology alongside fuel cells.”
Ker continued, “Our HDPI system allows the most advanced diesel engines to run on hydrogen and vehicles don’t require a complete overhaul. It also can deliver the same performance, range and reliability that fleets are used to.
“This makes it easy and relatively cost-effective to achieve hydrogen adoption, while other parts of the ecosystem, like infrastructure, catch up in the near-term.”
Read more:Cespira looks to drive forward hydrogen ICE mobility
Collaboration emerged as the central theme of the webinar, with Simon Hyde, CEO of FAUN Zoeller, emphasising that it represents the “new leadership.”
Hyde said, “Partnership is the new leadership. We learned from our UK deployment that we have to join the dots as it’s a massive change for everyone.”
Ker added, “Collaboration is key, and efforts must be aligned with clear standards for hydrogen storage, distribution and use.
“People need to be patient – hydrogen is tricky. By the end of the decade, we should have a good tranche of products and offerings out there commercially,” he concluded.
You can view the webinar on-demand here.
