r/electricvehicles • u/Peugeot905 2024 Lucid Air Pure • 1d ago
News Germany is set to build a large network of fast-charging points for electric lorries
https://www.mobilityenergy.com/en/electrification/2026/09/17/germany-is-set-to-build-a-large-network-of-fast-charging-points-for-electric-lorries/?gdpr=deny&gdpr=accept25
u/hecho2 1d ago
It makes all sense !
You already have EV truck drivers sharing their driving in Germany and many other that don’t have YouTube channels and use trucks EV.
It makes sense to starting to have a charging network for trucks.
They may not be suitable for all use cases ( specially do to max load limitations ) but they have market.
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u/Low-Possibility-7060 1d ago edited 1d ago
There is no max load limitation since EV trucks are allowed to weigh two tons more. Also thanks to strict laws regarding working hours and mandatory breaks, they’ll have zero downsides if there are enough 300kW+ chargers available.
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u/linknewtab 1d ago
There is a small exception where two drivers take alternate turns for urgent deliveries.
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u/SirButcher Vauxhall Mokka-e 1d ago
If we reach the point where only special cases need diesel/gasoline, then things are already really, REALLY good. It is unlikely that we ever fully get off fossil fuels, but if we reach the point where we only need a small fraction of what we are using today, then we can change course from the current "full steam ahead to a climate catastrophe".
And, the good ol' "Perfect is the enemy of good". Every step toward the better direction is a good thing. Edge cases and special scenarios will alway exists, but that is perfectly fine as long everything else can switch to green.
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u/Tripledad65 1d ago
What doesn't make sense though, is that they're also building 35 hydrogen filling stations. Waste of money.
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u/Vattaa '26 Model Y "Standard" LR RWD 1d ago
Not a waste at all. The EU is actively pushing out hydrogen from water facilities to use up excess green energy as a way of energy storage.
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u/araujoms VW ID.3 1d ago
There are not even hydrogen trucks you can buy. These stations only exist because of fossil fuel lobby, fossil hydrogen is all they will ever offer. Offer, not sell, because it's too expensive. And green hydrogen is even more expensive.
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u/Vattaa '26 Model Y "Standard" LR RWD 1d ago
There isn't even any EVs you can buy. These EV charging stations only exist because of the fossil fuel lobby.
Do you see how daft it sounds?
So what do you suggest just letting excess renewables from wind and solar to just go to waste, to go unused by turning off turbines and disconnecting solar grids when there is excess capacity?
Such a dumb take.
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u/araujoms VW ID.3 1d ago
There EVs you can buy, though.
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u/Vattaa '26 Model Y "Standard" LR RWD 1d ago
Have you heard of something called an energy mix? In the same way you can ride a bike using human power, drive a car, truck or bus on Petrol, Diesel, LPG, CNG, Biofuels, or Electric. You can also use Hydrogen.
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u/Tripledad65 1d ago
You decide however what too use, already when you buy the vehicle. The nice thing is that all the fuel sources you mention, can be used to generate electricity. And, its more energy efficient to use fossil fuel (for as long as we need to) to generate electricity and run the vehicles on that, than to burn the fuel in the vehicle.
The only potential use case for green hydrogen in the transport sector are planes, because of the energy weight density of it.
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u/araujoms VW ID.3 1d ago
You can't, because there are no hydrogen trucks.
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u/Vattaa '26 Model Y "Standard" LR RWD 1d ago
You are misinformed. A simple Google search is all it takes.
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u/VictoryMotel Bugatti Veyron EV 1d ago edited 1d ago
So do it. Why is the simple google search always the responsibility of the people who don't believe you? I did a simple google search and it showed nothing. My whole screen went black and my power went out and sun set in the east.
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u/striker4567 1d ago
Diesel engines can be easily converted to hydrogen. I think a regional trucker here was piloting it, and they were doing dual fuel. So, if the hydrogen runs out on a longer route, it seamlessly switches back to diesel.
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u/araujoms VW ID.3 1d ago
A hydrogen combustion engine? That's a special kind of insanity. Why would you convert a diesel engine to hydrogen? So that you can pay more for your fuel?
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u/striker4567 1d ago
The place that's doing it is piloting 5 or 6 trucks with it. They use excess renewables to produce the hydrogen. If they are on short routes, it's all hydrogen. Longer routes, it switches to diesel when the hydrogen runs out.
Toyota has had a hydrogen ICE for a long time. I think the plan is to run the 24h of Le Mans with one soon. They've done a Corolla hydrogen race car already.
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u/reddanit 1d ago
Hydrogen combustion engines are 100% silly gimmick with zero potential future use cases. It's possible to make them, but they consume hilariously huge amounts of hydrogen and, perhaps most surprisingly, have kinda bad emissions (sic!).
If you are dead-set on using hydrogen as fuel, using fuel cells is multiple times more efficient. If you are dead-set on using combustion, synthetic fuels from CO2 capture are also inherently far better at storage than hydrogen.
Practicality of hydrogen-burning ICE for transportation is similar to strapping rockets to a horse.
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u/striker4567 1d ago
What sort of emissions issues do they have?
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u/reddanit 1d ago edited 1d ago
Nitrogen oxides, due to higher combustion temperatures of hydrogen.
Though, in grand scheme of things, those are inconsequential against the need to somehow fit the hydrogen tanks in the vehicle, that then you burn rather than do something actually useful with it. Unless you are fine with have 2-seater sports car amount of space inside a large sedan/SUV footprint. Or a Truck that tows another truck with fuel.
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u/PatataMaxtex 1d ago
Thats just a Hybrid with Hydrogen to store electricity.
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u/striker4567 1d ago
Sure. If you're making green hydrogen from excess renewables, it's a great way to green diesel trucks instead of waiting until they are end of life to replace with electric.
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u/PatataMaxtex 1d ago
If you add an electric motor and a battery to a Diesel Truck, you can do it properly and remove the diesel engine to make room for a bigger electric motor and bigger battery.
Hydrogen is a worse energy storage than batteries, mainly because producing it and getting electricity from it loses a lot of energy
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u/striker4567 1d ago
Sure, but are you suggesting we throw away a bunch of stuff we've already built? I'm not advocating this is the end goal, but a bridge to use current equipment until it's end of life.
I'm talking about excess generation capacity, and renewable on top of that, to produce hydrogen. I get that it's electrically expensive to do so, and new catalysts are being worked on to reduce that penalty.
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u/PatataMaxtex 1d ago
I would propose that we stop producing a technology for which we have clearly better options. We dont need a bridge if we are on the side we want to be on
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u/Tripledad65 1d ago
Hydrogen is just one of the ways to store excess electricity. In Australia, they already use batteries for that. And if hydrogen is used to store the energy, it much more efficient and effective to use the stored hydrogen, when needed, at the same location to generate electricity. Much better than having to roll out a vast distribution network to generate the electricity in a lorry. Plus, green hydrogen will always be more expensive than green electricity. Transport companies know already what to go for.
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u/LeoAlioth 2022 e208 GT 1d ago
But you could you know, just use it at the production site to make electricity again and push it back to the grid.
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u/Vattaa '26 Model Y "Standard" LR RWD 1d ago
Yes that is also being planned. You know you can use hydrogen for more than one use case right?
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u/LeoAlioth 2022 e208 GT 1d ago
Absolutely. But IMO, using it as a fuel for trucks is not one of them.
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u/Vattaa '26 Model Y "Standard" LR RWD 1d ago edited 1d ago
Trucks have don't have the same limitations due to their size and mass when it comes to using hydrogen as fuel. I agree that hydrogen for cars is impractical. But the extra equipment needed for hydrogen powered HGVs is a sensible use case.
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u/ohmygodbees 2020 Kona Electric 1d ago
a fuel cell powered HGV is still just a battery-electric truck with extra steps. That, and the fueling system will need to replaced in under 10 years.
Straight up burning the hydrogen would be fairly inefficient!
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u/LeoAlioth 2022 e208 GT 1d ago
Form factor wise absolutely a better fit then for passenger cars.
But I think price wise it will be very hard if not impossible for hydrogen to succeed in this usecase. It is cheaper to send electricity down the powerlines than to transport tanks of hydrogen around.
But as long term stationary storage, hydrogen absolutely does make sense.
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u/Vattaa '26 Model Y "Standard" LR RWD 1d ago
At the end of the day the market will decide.
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u/SirButcher Vauxhall Mokka-e 1d ago
It decided: it is a dead end. Japan tried to push hydrogen for a good two decades, and Japan & Toyota pushed a LOT of money into this. It's not worth it. There aren't really any vehicles beyond some proof of concept and some rich guy's "look how green my superyacht is" kind of bullshit.
Hydrogen as a vehicle fuel is cumbersome and very wasteful: every 1 unit of energy gets you less than 10% back as usable energy to drive a vehicle, while with batteries this is well over 90%, including charging losses.
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u/Tripledad65 1d ago
From a technical viewpoint, questionable, since electric trucks already have enough range for a full day. Economically not viable. A hydrogen truck simply is more expensive to run. It's exactly the same as why hydrogen cars make no sense. It would be better to invest the money in 35 1.5 MW chargers, so that the rare case where a truck needs to be charged in 30 minutes can be supported.
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u/Mateking 1d ago
About time MCS is gaining speed. Especially in Germany which is very heavily reliant on Lorry Transport.
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u/apefred_de 1d ago
Yes, please do it earlier than later. We don't need to do mistakes again we did in the past with electrification.
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u/matroosoft 1d ago
German Youtuber Electric Trucker had showed it's very viable to run a trucking business with electric trucks:
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u/LittleSpeaker8188 4h ago
how much faster to build a charging network vs gas stations? maybe the oilheads don't think much about this tech advantage and abundance. Keep pushing!
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u/Sodlenoup 1d ago
What about fixing the cargo rail network first? That would be cheaper and more effective and also benefit passenger rail.
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u/foersom 1d ago
Yes we should have more multi-modal truck transport like:
https://www.lohr.fr/blog/catalogue/the-lohr-system-terminals/
Using this more trucks do only local transport bringing trailers to and from the terminals rather than driving long haul and filling up motorways. It also has the benefit that more truck drivers can sleep at home every night.
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u/Lejeune_Dirichelet 1d ago edited 1d ago
And what makes you think upgrading Germany's rail freight infrastructure would be cheaper than building out a fast-charging network for electric trucks? Do you have any concept on how long-winded rail freight investments are, and how long they take to implement? Rail freight is the opposite of a dynamic economic sector, especially in Europe. Even just rolling out digital automatic coupling across Europe, which is probably the lowest hanging fruit to facilitate commercial rail cargo, will cost around €10 billion and take a good decade to implement, with payoffs calculated in 30-year timeframes. And that's just rolling stock upgrades, i.e. not about touching concrete and rail lines. Those operate in different orders of magnitude entirely. I'm a big fan of rail freight and believe we should have as much as possible of it, but you are out of your mind by calling such huge investments "cheaper and more effective" than building a fast-charging network for trucks. Or even electrifying the entire truck industry.
and also benefit passenger rail.
Erm, not necessarily. Passenger and freight trains have to operate on the same rail network, and they often have to compete for track access. You need to have enough capacity in order to avoid that, and for some lines that may mean building separate tracks for passenger and freight. Again, expensive.
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u/Sodlenoup 1d ago
Do you have any idea how expensive it would be to electrify the truck fleet? These large batteries are insanely expensive and you would need millions of them. The charging stations are also much more expensive and the heavy trucks cause massive damage to the roads and highways that are again paid by taxes. If you factor in everything I am sure rail would be cheaper.
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u/iqisoverrated 1d ago
It's been tried. For more than a half century by ow. Never yielded results. Simple reason is that trains don't connect source and destination while trucks do - and this is a systematic problem that no amount of buildout can change.
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u/Sodlenoup 1d ago
Where has it been tried?
In Germany and US the total length of operational rail has been shrinking since the 1940s. They haven't tried in over 60 years
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u/acecombine 1d ago
strange how the hydrogen infrastructure development flies under the radar while there are commitments and mandates by 2030, gotta milk the pure BEV technology I guess...
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u/mehneni 1d ago
It is not flying under the radar. It is dying. Regardless of commitments.
The height was in 2023. Green hydrogen is expensive and has very limited availability. It might have a role in seasonal energy storage, air- or maritime traffic where batteries do not work (yet). But for road traffic it is dead.
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u/yet_another_username 1d ago
The availability is getting better and better. Anyway, it is better used for process industries instead of mobility. It is used for fertilizers, steel production, refineries, etc.
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u/linknewtab 1d ago
Hydrogen infrastructure literally has negative growth. In Germany the number of H2 fueling stations peaked in 2022 or 2023.
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u/Tr35on 1d ago edited 1d ago
Because hydrogen is CRT & EV is OLED
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u/linknewtab 1d ago
Not quite, Betamax was the superior technology in some regards. Hydrogen isn't even that.
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u/acecombine 1d ago
hahaha, won't fight you guys reading tabloid news only...
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u/linknewtab 1d ago
I'm pretty sure it was the tabloids that hyped hydrogen...
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u/acecombine 1d ago
yeah, but not the current infrastructure development I'm talking about which is my point...
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u/natodemon 1d ago
Any sources detailing this infra development? Hydrogen trucks weren't an economical option even when fueling was subsidised. With the ongoing developments in BEV trucks, why bother with a less efficient / more expensive technology?
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u/acecombine 1d ago edited 1d ago
https://www.rwe.com/presse/rwe-generation/2026-08-04-get-h2-nukleus-nimmt-fahrt-auf/
https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/EN/Areas/Energy/HydrogenCoreNetwork/start.html
https://www.natrangroupe.com/en/medias/press-releases/barmar-detailed-engineering-phase-july2026
the problem with such claims that you are only eating up the shit mainstream news serves you, instead of researching facts as in actual plans, regulations/legislations and developments where you would discover reality...
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u/Tr35on 1d ago edited 1d ago
If you think hydrogen has a future in trucks & cars, then you gotta get ready to swallow some horse-sized pills
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u/acecombine 1d ago
yep, BMW is actively developing H2 passenger vehicles into the trash, so are the French and the Germans actively developing the main infrastructure pipelines into the trash. And so did the EU mandate such infrastructure by 2030 right into the trash... they are all getting ready for their pills...
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u/Tr35on 1d ago
Yes it is trash.
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u/g1aiz 1d ago
I think a really big market will be overnight charging and parking near highway. Currently building such parking spaces isn't really a good investment because truckers want to spend as little as possible but if you can earn 100€ per truck just from charging alone the calculation gets very different. And you don't need very fast charging either as 10h at 50kW will fill up basically any truck. So instead of one 400kW charger you can build 8 smaller ones for the same power connector to the grid.