Hydrogen-powered trucks: the future of haulage

Posted: April 21, 2025

In February this year, the Italian vehicle manufacturer IVECO delivered two long-haul trucks to a BMW plant in Leipzig. As these two trucks shuttle back and forth along the Autobahn, transporting parts between Leipzig and southern Germany, they will be releasing absolutely zero emissions—unless you count water. That’s because both are powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

These S-eWay Fuel Cell trucks, as they are named, are produced by IVECO and operated by BMW. They will be hitting the road as part of the H2Haul initiative a Europe-wide project co-financed by the EU’s Clean Hydrogen Partnership that aims to deploy 16 heavy-duty hydrogen fuel cell trucks in four European countries. The hope is the initiative will demonstrate the practicability of hydrogen-powered trucking on the continent.

Trucking is essential to global commerce, with over ten million tons of freight moved annually by trucks in the U.S. alone. Yet historically, the industry has proven difficult to decarbonize because trucks need to carry heavy payloads over long distances along heterogeneous routes, making electric battery solutions difficult to execute. So could hydrogen, the lightest of the elements, help shape the heavy-duty hauling of the future?

Why hydrogen is ideal for heavy-duty trucking

For some time, hydrogen has offered a beacon of hope for the decarbonization of high-emissions sectors like heavy industry and transportation. Hydrogen has a very high energy density: when it interacts with oxygen, it generates plenty of energy with no other byproduct but water.

Hydrogen-based fuels have already been proposed for the movement of people and goods by rail, by water, and by air. On the road, hydrogen cars have so far proven less efficient than their electric counterparts. Yet hydrogen holds considerable potential for powering larger vehicles.

Large vehicles like commercial trucks can use hydrogen as a fuel source either by burning it in specially-designed internal combustion engines, which partly leverage existing diesel designs (but are generally still in prototype phase), or via fuel cells that convert hydrogen into electricity to power motors, producing only water as exhaust.

These fuel cells have proven particularly well-suited to heavy-duty trucks, which typically carry heavy loads over long distances in a hurry. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles can even be refueled about as quickly as diesel trucks, according to Volker Hasenberg, head of hydrogen strategy at Daimler Truck.

These fuel cell trucks can also carry more weight for longer than their battery-powered counterparts, increasing the vehicles' range; the fuel cells themselves are also lighter than batteries, reducing the weight penalty involved. “When the threshold is the weight, not the space to be transported, then we have an advantage for hydrogen trucks,” said Hasenberg. 

According to Michael Nikolaides, the BMW Group's head of production network and logistics, hydrogen may currently be more expensive than diesel—but the technology is likely to pay off over the long term because it offers reduced emissions and less operational downtime. And unlike battery-powered vehicles, hydrogen-powered trucks are not dependent on the grid and require fewer rare materials as inputs. “When assessed over the entire lifecycle, hydrogen’s ability to cut emissions and future-proof operations outweighs its current cost premium,” said Nikolaides.

Accordingly, RMI has called long-distance heavy truck transportation a “no-regret, high-priority” application of hydrogen that “should be a core focus of policies and investment today.” In Europe, where the EU has been pushing for the decarbonization of road freight as it targets climate neutrality by 2050, the case for hydrogen-powered trucking seems particularly strong. A Roland Berger study last year argued that hydrogen fuel cell trucks “are one of the most promising zero-emission alternatives for trucking,” while Global Market Insights estimated earlier this year that the European hydrogen trucks market will grow to $6.3 billion by 2034, citing the activities of manufacturers and logistics companies as well as the active enabling role of European governments.

Hydrogen fuel cell trucks hit the road

In recent years, a wave of momentum has been growing behind hydrogen-based trucking.

Earlier this year, German commercial vehicle giant Daimler Truck announced that their GenH2 truck prototypes had passed a series of demanding tests conducted in Alpine Switzerland, handling winter cold, snow, and steep mountain slopes. A few months before the announcement, German federal and state sources had awarded over 200 million euros in grant funding to Daimler Truck to support the development, production, and deployment of 100 such hydrogen fuel cell trucks.

Around the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, Toyota partnered with Coca-Cola and Air Liquide to pilot a proof-of-concept truck that exclusively used green hydrogen. Volvo, meanwhile, has announced plans to begin testing hydrogen-powered combustion engine trucks in 2026.

The U.S. Department of Energy has also been active in this sphere, partnering with Accelera and other federal agencies to develop a prototype hydrogen-powered H2Rescue truck of the kind usually used for disaster relief. Last year, the D.O.E. announced that its prototype had broken a world record by traveling 1,806 miles (2,906 kilometers) without needing to refuel or recharge and while producing no carbon emissions.

What’s on the horizon for hydrogen trucking?

As in other transportation industries, unlocking the potential of hydrogen-fueled trucking faces serious challenges in reaching the necessary scale for profitability—and in creating the requisite infrastructure for a hydrogen-based haulage economy.

Hydrogen haulage does offer infrastructural advantages over, say, electric cars: car batteries need to be charged more often and in more different places, whereas trucking tends to take place over longer and more predictable routes, where hydrogen refueling stations can be optimally located. Still, several external factors need to align if the adoption of hydrogen-powered trucking is going to hit top gear.

One of these factors has to do with refueling. In Switzerland, where Hyundai has been running a fleet of hydrogen trucks since 2020, the refueling infrastructure is comparatively well-developed. The same is not necessarily true in other geographies. In recent months, operators in both Germany and California have announced the closing of hydrogen refueling stations for light-duty vehicles and passenger vehicles.

In 2023, the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association responded to the E.U.'s decarbonization goals by arguing that, in addition to publicly accessible chargers, 700 additional hydrogen refilling stations would be required. TotalEnergies has recently partnered with Air Liquide to develop a network of 100 hydrogen truck refueling stations across Europe, two of which are in the close vicinity of BMW’s Leipzig plant. They plan to open 20 by the end of 2025. Yet the necessary scale remains to be achieved.

Other key challenges lie in the price competitiveness and reliability of supply for hydrogen itself, although growing demand could help to reduce the price across the board. Additionally, if the sustainability case for hydrogen relies on promises of massive emissions reduction, then the use of specifically green hydrogen—that is, hydrogen produced from sustainable sources as opposed to fossil fuels—will remain a priority.

Trucking is here to stay. With the right infrastructure, willpower, and scale, hydrogen technology can play a major role in its decarbonization—not quite yet, but certainly for the long haul.