‘Too risky’ to not use battery and hydrogen tech: Daimler Truck CEO

An eActros is unveiled at the Mercedes-Benz truck plant of Daimler Truck AG on Ocotber 7, 2021.

Uli Deck | image alliance | Getty Photographs

The Daimler Truck CEO has spoken of the difficulties and prospects his field faces in the yrs ahead, as competitiveness heats up and efforts to build zero-emission choices deal with hurdles relating to charge.

In an interview with CNBC’s “Avenue Indications Europe” Friday, Martin Daum spoke about the existing situation when it arrived to the charge of electrified vehicles, emphasizing that a quantity of components ended up in participate in.

“The initial real truth is, in significant obligation business vehicles you require such a large quantity of strength, this means you need such large batteries, that this kind of a truck usually will expense substantially far more than a combustion motor powered truck,” he claimed.

“The savings occur if the price for green, renewable electricity drops and the value for emitting CO2 rises and then out of that equation you may get a charge parity, or in other … cases road transportation will turn into far more high priced.”

Even with the previously mentioned, Daum claimed the manufacturer had to go “straight forward to zero-emission transportation.” It’s formerly laid out designs for zero-emission automobiles to account for “up to 60% of profits” by the calendar year 2030.

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The electrification of extended-haul, significant-responsibility vans poses its have set of distinctive difficulties. The Worldwide Vitality Agency’s World EV Outlook for 2021 has described very long-haul trucking as needing “state-of-the-art systems for superior electricity charging and/or large batteries.”

Daimler Truck’s aim on zero-emission technological innovation will put it in competitiveness with organizations like Tesla and Geely, which are also creating electric vans. Daum was bullish about the potential, nonetheless, telling CNBC Daimler Truck was “the pioneer in electric powered vehicles.”

“We deliver, we you should not announce … we just launched our all-electric powered major obligation truck in Europe, the eActros, a few of months back,” he explained. “But that was a launch, not an announcement.”

“So how does our technological innovation stack up to the many others? We very first need to see the vans of the many others to then assess the know-how.”

Together with battery electric powered automobiles, Daimler Truck is also concentrating on what it describes as “hydrogen-centered gas mobile electric autos.” To this finish, it is concentrating on a network of 150 refueling stations and 5,000 “major-obligation hydrogen vehicles” by the year 2030.

In his interview with CNBC, Daum was requested about the debate involving battery electrical and hydrogen gas cell. “We go for the two for the reason that the two … make feeling,” he replied, likely on to demonstrate how various technologies would be suitable in distinct situations.

“In general, you can say: If you go to town supply where by you need lessen quantities of energy in there, you can charge overnight in a depot, then it is really certainly battery electrical,” he mentioned.

“But the minute you happen to be on the road, the moment you go from Stockholm to Barcelona … in my viewpoint, you require one thing which you can transportation better and in which you can refuel superior and that is eventually H2.”

“The ruling is not out, but I feel it can be too dangerous for a enterprise our dimension to go with just one engineering.”

Daum’s comments arrive as Daimler Truck prepares for a planned listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in December.