Back in the late 90’, Mercedes Benz in Europe produced a limited edition FCEV (fuel cell electric vehicle) on the base of an A-Class series car. It had the same payload and range as a Diesel powered A-Class (of which I had one; 3.9l/100km, 1200 km range on 50l tank. Transport Canada refused to let me import it to Canada because the vehicle was ”not built for the NA market“ Yes, I am still mad about that. All politics. I digress).
Anyway, said FCEV ran on H2 and you could refuel it in about 10min. They had set-up a number of fuelling stations around Stuttgart, Germany (MB Headquarters), and were hoping the German and other European Governments would start to expand the H2 fueling stations. That unfortunately never happened and the mass production of the FCEV was shelved. They were 20 years ahead of their time.
Forward to 2019: FCEV are back on the table because of their better payload and better range than their EV counterparts. Germany, (and other € countries and California have put in place laws that favour FCEV busses. The advantage is the a company basically only need one fuelling station at their bus depot since the vehicles always return back there at the end of the shift.
So what about the trucking industry? Solutions are being developed by such companies as Hydrogenics (
https://www.hydrogenics.com) out of Mississauga, ON (they have just been bought by Cummins) and Nikola Motors (
https://nikolamotor.com), in Phoenix, AZ. Battery only EV in their case is not practical - despite what Elon Musk keeps saying, as they need the range and payload and can’t wait for 12h to recharge.
Ballard Power (
https://www.ballard.com) have been on the market for a very long time and have both stationary and mobile FC solutions.
China is investing heavily. So are most Automakers, especially the European and Asian ones.
Here is my prediction: EV for local, commuter traffic, FCEV (or some derivative) for the long haul market.