[nargella]

A good friend of mine worked in compressor technology for 10 years. We had the fortune of working together for a few projects before he set off for Denmark to finish R&D of a new compressor for hydrogen fueling stations. He thought it'd only take 2 years. Took more like 5 years with all the certifications required and fine tuning parameters. So it's in use now in the EU.

When he was nearing the end of the project I asked if he thought the future of energy was battery technology or hydrogen or both? He answered both. The energy density of hydrogen is too good to ignore for commercial vehicles (buses, construction, 18 wheelers). The momentum in battery technology and infrastructure for (car) 'limited' range use is going to carry forward.

This friend now makes high end technology based liquor cabinets (chuckle). Probably too much pressure in his last gig.

[giantrobot]

I think your friend is making their judgement with a bit of myopia. EVs with batteries open a lot of opportunities that can't really work for any sort of liquid fuel vehicle, hydrogen included.

Batteries can be charged basically anywhere hooked to the electrical grid. They can also be charged in places with their own islanded power generation (renewable or not). So they can effectively be recharged anywhere they can stop for a while.

They can also be charged while in motion with electrified roads. A bus in a downtown area can be charged/run off overhead lines but then drive around outlying areas on their batteries. General utility overhead lines could also be used by any cargo vehicle with a pantograph for inner city driving.

Long haul EVs and construction vehicles are more likely to electrify as diesel-electric hybrids rather than pure battery or fuel cells. Their "recharge" profile is very different from passenger vehicles. Construction vehicles need to power their actual tools so they need super high density power they can really only get from diesel fuel.

[tdy721]

Many construction vehicles use hydraulic motivation. The Diesel engine is only there to pressurize the hydraulic system. There’s no reason you can’t use an electric motor to motivate (The pumps inside) those vehicles, they don’t directly use the diesel output as they are built today.

[giantrobot]

You can use an electric motor to run the hydraulics but batteries are a poor way to power those motors. A diesel generator has far better energy density for a given volume. So I'm saying a diesel hybrid power train is better suited for construction vehicles than a straight battery electric.

[mlindner]

I think he's wrong for some commercial vehicles even. Battery energy/power density hasn't plateaued yet and there hasn't been much in the way of vertical integration of raw metal input to cell output yet. Their input stock is an expensive already partially refined material (metal sulfates) rather than raw metal which increases the total production cost. Tabless battery cells will also increase the energy density.