Way back in January 2022, GM Authority reported that General Motors was developing the Hydrotec fuel cell technology for commercial vehicle application. Now, nearly a year-and-a-half later, The General is ready to begin equipping work trucks and other heavy-duty commercial vehicles with the hydrogen fuel cell technology.
According to a report from SAE, GM Hydrotec and GM Defense Executive Director Charlie Freese went on record stating that Hydrotec is ready to be implemented into commercial applications.
“Large vehicles and heavy payloads – that’s where replacing petroleum-fueled vehicles with hydrogen fuel cells works very well,” Freese claimed. “That’s where we plan to go moving forward.”
Freese pointed to the Hydrotec Power Cube – a modular hydrogen fuel cell system – as the reason why the technology is suitable for commercial vehicles or stationary-power applications. This Power Cube is composed of more than 300 second-generation fuel cells that are configured in a way that makes it compact and easily packaged, along with allowing for power-and thermal-management systems.
Notably, the second-gen design has markedly reduced reliance on precious metals for construction. More specifically, the Gen 0 design used roughly 80 grams of platinum, the Gen 1 used 30 grams, and the Gen 2 tech uses only 20 grams.
“Our process has been to optimize the way fuel cells operate,” Freese stated. He went on to explain that reduced dimensions have a “much more manufacturable design.”
The reasoning behind the application of Hydrotec technology into commercial vehicles goes deeper than just packaging constraints. General Motors Vice President of Global Electrification, Controls, Software and Electronics Dan Nicholson commented earlier this year that the Detroit-based automaker firmly believes that fuel cell technology in heavier vehicles is the future due to the drawbacks of the rugged work environment commercial vehicles endure.
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Comments
Great news, I hope they sell 1,000 of fuelcell powered heavy trucks. But where is the hydrogen. There are only 58 hydrogen station nationwide with 57 in California and 1 in Hawaii. No idea how many of them actually works.
https://afdc.energy.gov/stations/states
Since when did the actual facts get in the way of gm rolling out units??
How come GM plans for large or heavy commercial hydrogen powered vehicles only and Toyota has thousands of compact vehicles in California filling up in about six to eight minutes at regular service stations , that is the future with 120F temperatures not the over worked power grid in the U.S. buying power from Canada and Quebec in the whole northeast states .EV ‘s are only one part of the future and GM has put much of their funding toward them, under Mary Barra leadership ?
You complain that there aren’t enough EV refueling locations in the US despite most owners being able to recharge at home and thus converting to EV is a waste. Now you want GM to convert to hydrogen Fuel when there are only 60 public refueling stations nationwide. How is that logical?
Implementing this in commercial vehicles will allow companies to have their own private refueling stations. No need for GM or the government to build out more refueling stations.
Love the hydrogen idea, more power dense to compare to diesel, doesnt quite get there but would rather have a commercial hydrogen asset than an electric one hands down, not even close.
Oh, and by the way did anyone see that ship that hauls 3800 cars catch fire? 500 of those cars were evs, kind of made me smile but hope no one was hurt. Now since you can’t put a lithium ev battery out with water wonder how they will handle that? Thats an ecological disaster if those were to melt thru the hull, or how do u remove water has been used to try and put it out that is now an eco-disaster itself? Now that’s a cluster fock no matter how you look atit.
The fire on that ship reportedly started with one of the EVs.
Kind of wondering where all of the hydrogen is going to come from. My understanding is that most of it is sourced from natural gas at this point. Electrolysis uses a lot of energy to crack water. It will be interesting to how this works out. Given the choice, I’d choose hydrogen for my long distance vehicle and perhaps an EV for in-town, near-town travel.