{"id":94,"date":"2025-12-10T12:01:29","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/fuels\/?page_id=94"},"modified":"2025-12-10T12:48:56","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T23:48:56","slug":"fuel-cell-vs-battery-electric-trucks","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/fuels\/fuel-cell-vs-battery-electric-trucks\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuel cell vs battery electric trucks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Background<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fuel cell and battery electric powertrains are both commercially available options available to trucking operators looking to decarbonize their fleet. However it remains difficult to assess which options is best suited for long-haul heavy vehicles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To help operators assess the powertrain technologies, we have built a bottom-up model that calculates how much energy is consumed by zero emission trucks when travelling on real trucking routes in Aotearoa New Zealand. The model used GIS data to account for elevation changes and road curvature when estimating truck speeds. Energy consumption was calculated based on kinetic and potential energy changes, as well as air and rolling resistance. The estimated truck speeds were validated against real world data and gave reasonable agreement, with 65% of estimated speeds being within 10% of the real data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Findings<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The chart below shows the energy system mass that a 44 tonne truck (gross weight) must carry to travel various routes without charging or refuelling. By <strong>energy system mass<\/strong> we mean the mass of batteries (in the case of <strong>battery electric trucks, BETs<\/strong>) or the combined mass of fuel cell, hydrogen storage tanks and regenerative braking battery (in the case of <strong>fuel cell electric trucks, FCETs<\/strong>). The energy system mass is a key parameter because any mass that needs to be carried to provide energy to the truck means less payload can be carried.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"669\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/fuels\/files\/2025\/12\/journey-energy-use-1024x669.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-95\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For a short journey, such as Auckland to Hamilton, there was no difference between the energy system mass for battery electric trucks vs fuel cell trucks. For longer journeys, however, the difference becomes larger. In the case of T\u0101kaka to Clandeboye, the energy system in the battery electric truck was 3.2 tonnes heavier than that of the fuel cell truck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Energy system mass is well predicted by distance travelled<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Energy system mass correlates well with journey distance as shown below for a 44 tonne truck. Elevation changes and road curvature only have  minor effects.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"947\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/fuels\/files\/2025\/12\/energy-storage-vs-route-distance-1024x947.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-96\" style=\"width:500px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Where the lines intersect is the distance at which neither powertrain offers any weight advantage. For a 44 tonne truck this is at a route distance of around 150 km. For journeys longer than this, the battery electric truck will need to carry more weight than the fuel cell truck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Estimating energy system mass based on truck weight and route distance<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The slopes of the plots above represent the additional energy system mass required to travel a further one kilometre. These slopes are dependent on the gross truck weight &#8211; larger trucks need more energy for each kilometre travelled. The relationship is plotted below:<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"882\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/fuels\/files\/2025\/12\/energy-system-mass-vs-truck-mass-1024x882.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-97\" style=\"width:500px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <strong>incremental energy system mass<\/strong> from the figure above can be used to estimate the energy system mass for a given gross truck weight and journey distance. For a <strong>battery electric truck<\/strong>, the energy system mass can directly be calculated by:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Energy system mass = Incremental energy system mass <math data-latex=\"\\times\"><semantics><mo lspace=\"0em\" rspace=\"0em\">\u00d7<\/mo><annotation encoding=\"application\/x-tex\">\\times<\/annotation><\/semantics><\/math> Route distance<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">For a <strong>fuel cell truck<\/strong>, we need to include the fuel cell mass (which is independent of the route distance):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Energy system mass = Fuel cell mass + (Incremental energy system mass <math data-latex=\"\\times\"><semantics><mo lspace=\"0em\" rspace=\"0em\">\u00d7<\/mo><annotation encoding=\"application\/x-tex\">\\times<\/annotation><\/semantics><\/math> Route distance)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Energy consumption results<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fuel cell trucks are less efficient than battery electric trucks, consuming more energy per kilometre as shown below:<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"929\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/fuels\/files\/2025\/12\/Sensitivity-mass-10Dec2025-1024x929.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-98\" style=\"width:500px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What comes next?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Full details of the methodology and results of this study are due to be published in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Trucking operators are ultimately interested in the financial return a truck will make over its lifetime. The energy system mass is one factor in this, as more mass to provide energy means less payload and less revenue. The truck&#8217;s energy consumption affects fuelling\/charging costs, which is one of the main operating costs. These need to be considered together with the capital cost of the truck to determine the relative economic benefit of battery vs fuel cell trucks. We are continuing work on this problem. Watch this space for updated analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Background Fuel cell and battery electric powertrains are both commercially available options available to trucking operators looking to decarbonize their fleet. However it remains difficult to assess which options is best suited for long-haul heavy vehicles. To help operators assess the powertrain technologies, we have built a bottom-up model that calculates how much energy is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44181,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-94","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/fuels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/fuels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/fuels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/fuels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/fuels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/fuels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/94\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/fuels\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}