HANNOVER, Germany—Technology options, not mandates, will most effectively lead the transition to carbon-neutral transportation, the head of one of the world’s largest vehicle suppliers explained here at IAA Transportation 2024.
“The thing that’s really important for me, and for Mahle, is just to promote this freedom of choice for the consumer, and for the investor, and for trucks,” Arnd Franz, CEO and chairman of the Mahle Management Board, said during a roundtable discussion with international journalists.
“Don’t take away the freedom of choice. The people need to spend their money for what makes sense to them while reaching carbon neutrality, that’s what’s important. Some legislation wants to decide somewhere in the capitol or the parliament what’s right for the people—and that does not fly. We waste money until we reach that reality check, and the reality check is coming. Sooner or later, they find out, ‘Oh, it doesn’t work,’ and there’s no backup.”
Backing up that position, Mahle is broadly positioned with components and high systems expertise for battery electric drives, hydrogen engines, fuel cells, and the use of renewable fuels to actively shape the coming climate-friendly transportation.
The company supplies more than 120 international commercial vehicle brands in the on- and off-highway sectors. The commercial vehicle segment accounts for about one-fifth of the company’s original equipment business, and the trend points up. Mahle expects robust growth in China.
At IAA, Mahle highlighted its systemic approach to a fuel cell truck with fuel cell peripherals, thermal management, and a fully functional electric axle with two integrated SCT electric motors. Other premieres included a new evaporative cooling system and a bionic fan for demanding fuel cell and electric vehicles. (See the slideshow above.)
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Franz suggested that hydrogen power for the commercial vehicle sector continues to show promise, both in the near term and in the future. Significantly, hydrogen fueling stations require fewer trucks to break even than cars, making trucks a key to the hydrogen economy. A Hyundai pilot program in Switzerland uses 100 trucks with a 400-kilometer (249-mile) range, he noted.
“Obviously, battery-electric trucks will play a major, major role,” Franz said. “But there are so many use cases where battery-electric vehicles have their restrictions—whether it’s range, whether it’s load, whether it’s volume—and therefore, we believe the trucking industry will be a major, major part of the future hydrogen ecosystems, and possibly also a very important lead into a future hydrogen economy.”
Franz also noted the growing interest in hydrogen-fueled ICE engines rather than fuel cells, largely due to the appeal of a familiar fueling and service network. He added that widespread adoption could depend on whether policymakers decide to support it.
“The hydrogen combustion engine has very low TCO depending on how you tax it: What is the hydrogen cost, and how much tax do you put on it?” Franz said. “In Europe, we have a Euro of tax on every liter of diesel—so that’s four euros a gallon. And if they put the same thing on renewable fuels, renewable fuels will have a much harder time to make it to the market and much harder time to find investors.”
Likewise, interim allowances must be made to make a difference in the race to clean fuels.
“Obviously, we can’t achieve any CO2 emission reductions if we use natural gas or any other fossil sources to produce hydrogen, which today is the overwhelming portion of hydrogen production worldwide,” Franz told FleetOwner. “But we have a flourishing and growing portion of that being more sustainable. By more sustainable, I mean blue—and eventually green—hydrogen. To get the infrastructure going, to get the hydrogen ecosystem going, we will fail if we don’t use blue hydrogen."
Blue hydrogen, he explained, is hydrogen produced from fossil sources with carbon capture, so carbon doesn’t make it into the atmosphere.
“Therefore, it’s better than everything else before, and it is climate neutral, as a bottom line effect,” he said. “Eventually, we need to get to wind and sun as the sources of energy to make hydrogen.”
