Mercedes-Benz GenH2 Truck completes range testing

Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany- Daimler Truck AG., has successfully demonstrated that hydrogen fuel-cell technology can be the right solution to decarbonize flexible and demanding long-haul road transportation. A public road approved prototype of the Mercedes-Benz GenH2 Truck completed Daimler Truck’s #HydrogenRecordRun covering 1,047 km of distance driven with one fill of liquid hydrogen.

On September 25th, a Mercedes-Benz truck powered by a cellcentric fuel-cell system and liquid hydrogen fuel completed a record run from Woerth am Rhein to Berlin, covering 40 tons fully loaded without emitting CO2. The achievement was independently confirmed by TÜV Rheinland.

Together with Rainer Müller-Finkeldei, Head of Mercedes-Benz Trucks Product Development, Rhineland-Palatinate's Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Petra DickWalther, sent the hydrogen truck on its journey in front of international media: This day is wonderful! A hydrogen-powered truck is leaving from Rhineland-Palatinate for Berlin. We're pleased that such an important development came from Rhineland-Palatinate and was developed and tested at the Woerth facility. This is a demonstration of Rhineland-Palatinate's entrepreneurial spirit and will fundamentally impact the transportation industry. It marks a significant turning point in the restructuring and decarbonization of the transportation sector, thanks to new technology. The GenH2 Truck's trip from Rhineland-Palatinate to Berlin serves as tangible evidence of this.

Mr. Andreas Gorbach, Member of the Board of Management of Daimler Truck AG, Head of Truck Technology, said that,“ We require both battery-electric and hydrogen-powered driving technologies to decarbonize transportation. Long-distance transportation activities that require flexibility and challenge are where fuel cell trucks excel. We have now convincingly shown that hydrogen in vehicles is anything but hot air, and we are making great strides toward series manufacturing after surpassing the 1,000-kilometer threshold with just one fill. However, our record run today serves as a reminder that, in addition to the appropriate drive technology, decarbonizing transportation also needs to take into account the following two factors: a green energy infrastructure, as well as affordable prices in comparison to traditional automobiles."

Ahead of the run, the Mercedes-Benz GenH2 Truck was fueled with liquid hydrogen at Daimler Truck’s filling station at the company’s development and testing centre in Woerth. The hydrogen supplied by Air Liquide is of renewable origin, as it has been produced from biomethane with guarantees of origin. During the refuelling process, cryogenic liquid hydrogen at minus 253 degrees Celsius was filled into two 40 kg tanks mounted on either side of the truck chassis. Thanks to the particularly good insulation of the vehicle tanks, the hydrogen can be kept at temperature for a sufficiently long time without active cooling. Both tanks were sealed before the start of the #HydrogenRecordRun by TÜV Rheinland.

Daimler Truck prefers liquid hydrogen in the development of hydrogen-based drives. In this aggregate state the energy carrier has a significantly higher energy density in relation to volume compared to gaseous hydrogen. As a result, more hydrogen can be carried, which significantly increases the range and enables comparable performance of the vehicle with that of a conventional diesel truck.