Volvo Trucks has today (20th April) reaffirmed its commitment in developing hydrogen-powered trucks with fuel cell variants set to come in the near future.

This comes with the news that Volvo trucks is set to scale its involvement in decarbonising the transportation sector, starting with electric trucks, with the ambition to branch into hydrogen fuel cell powered variants in the future.

Volvo want to start with customer tests of trucks with fuel cells in about three years and to be in production during the second half of the decade following the 50% acquisition of Daimler Truck Fuel Cell for around €0.6bn

It is believed that the company see hydrogen fuel cells capable of meeting the challenging demands for both high load capacity and with a much longer range compared to standard electric trucks.

The joint venture with Dalmer, announced in November 2020, will take advantage of the expertise and extensive experience from several decades of development work on fuel cells at Daimler.

Both companies will cooperate to develop a system with several power stages, including a twin system with 300kW continuous power for heavy-duty long-haul trucks.

Roger Alm, President of Volvo Trucks, said, “This technology is developing rapidly, and our ambition is also to make the long driving distances electrified, using both batteries and fuel cells.

“Our aim is to start selling fuel cell electric trucks in the second part of this decade and we are confident we can make this happen.”