Daimler Trucks Begins Rigorous Testing of Fuel-Cell Truck

Daimler Trucks is focusing on hydrogen-powered fuel-cells for the electrification of its vehicles for flexible and demanding long-haul transport.

It aims to achieve ranges of up to 1,000 kilometres and more without any stops for refuelling.

In late April, the truck manufacturer began to conduct rigorous tests of the first new enhanced prototype of its Mercedes-Benz GenH2 Truck, which was unveiled in 2020. This marks an important milestone on the path to series production.

During these tests, the developers at Daimler Trucks are putting the fuel-cell vehicle through its paces.

The extensive series of tests is very demanding for the vehicle and its components, and focusses, among other things, on continuous operation, different weather and road conditions, and various driving manoeuvers.

According to Daimler Trucks’ development plan, the vehicle will also be tested on public roads before the end of the year.

Customer trials are scheduled to begin in 2023. The first series-produced GenH2 Trucks are expected to be handed over to customers starting in 2027.

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Martin Daum, Chairman of the Board of Management of Daimler Truck AG and Member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG: “We are consistently pursuing our technology strategy for the electrification of our trucks.

"We want to offer our customers the best locally CO2-neutral trucks — powered by either batteries or hydrogen-based fuel-cells, depending on the use case.

"We’re right on schedule and I’m delighted that the rigorous tests of the GenH2 Truck have started successfully.

“The hydrogen-powered fuel-cell drive will become indispensable for CO2-neutral long-haul road transport in the future."

The development engineers at Daimler Trucks are designing the GenH2 Truck so that the vehicle and its components meet the same durability requirements as a comparable conventional Mercedes-Benz Actros.

This means 1.2 million kilometres on the road over a period of ten years and a total of 25,000 hours of operation.

That’s why the GenH2 Truck has to complete extremely demanding tests — just like every other new Actros generation.

During the first few weeks of testing, the vehicle has already covered hundreds of kilometres under continuous load on a road-to-rig test stand and gone through many extreme situations that are based on real-life operating conditions.

Examples include emergency braking and kerbstone drives along the test track.

The GenH2 Truck has been newly designed from the ground up.

Daimler Trucks prefers to use liquid hydrogen because in this state, the energy carrier has a far higher energy density in relation to volume than gaseous hydrogen.

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