Clean commercial transportation: Medium and heavy duty fuel cell electric trucks

Recent advancements in sustainable transportation have led to the release of commercially available fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). Examples such as the Toyota Mirai and the Hyundai Tucson are the culmination of many years of research and development. FCEVs provide a scalable pathway for clean hydrogen fuel to be used for transportation power generation. The following work presents modeling and analysis on the topic of commercial medium and heavy duty (MD and HD) vehicles that are operated using hydrogen fuel cells. This work studies how hydrogen fuel could be stored onboard MD/HD vehicles, and how these vehicles perform under various drive cycles that simulate real driving conditions for various vehicle classes and occupations. The aim is to provide an analysis framework to build increased understanding for which MD/HD vehicle weight classes and vocations could provide economic and environmental benefits when utilizing hydrogen fuel cell technologies.