Hydrogen Fleets Are Much More Expensive To Maintain Than Battery & Even Diesel

One of my current activities is participating in a review group for a European study on heavy vehicle decarbonization comparisons and simulations. This means that I am examining the assumptions made by the authors, among other things.

As the paper is under review and assumptions are being tested and improved, I am unable to identify the author or organization at this time. This critique is not about proving anyone wrong or right, but about scrutinizing a set of assumptions made about fuel cell heavy vehicle maintenance.

For starters, a heavy duty fuel cell vehicle, like a freight truck or transit bus, is essentially a battery electric vehicle with additional fuel cell drive train components. This entails several added components with many points of potential failure and scheduled maintenance requirements.

The paper includes a rather complex diagram of the air management process for a fuel cell vehicle, which isn’t required for battery electric vehicles, to illustrate the non-trivial nature of the added components involved in the maintenance of fuel cell vehicles.

Additionally, data from light vehicles has shown that maintenance on the drive train costs a lot more on hybrid vehicles than on pure battery electric vehicles and about the same as internal combustion vehicles. Similarly, a trucking study conducted in the past had significant maintenance cost improvements for hydrogen drive train trucks and none for battery electric trucks.

Upon examining studies and empirical data, it became evident that low-maintenance assumptions for fuel cell trucks are based on guesswork and no evidence. Anecdotal data from various bus operators and a train OEM executive all point to much higher maintenance costs for fuel cell vehicles compared to simpler battery electric vehicles or diesel trucks.

Further examination of empirical data from bus fleets in California also revealed much higher maintenance costs for fuel cell buses compared to diesel buses over a period of several years. These findings indicate that low-maintenance assumptions for fuel cell trucks by transportation researchers appear to be unsupported by empirical data.