Ashok Leyland and Reliance unveil heavy-duty truck with hydrogen ICE technology.

• India’s First Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engine (H2-ICE) powered truck was developed by Reliance in partnership with Ashok Leyland. The H2-ICE truck is the first of its kind in India to be powered by hydrogen. the truck emits zero carbon. It is completely clean.
• TO harness energy from hydrogen, there are two technologies: hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and hydrogen internal combustion engines (H2ICE).
• FCEVs generate electricity from hydrogen in a device known as a fuel cell that is used to power the electric motor, whereas H2ICE burn hydrogen in an internal combustion engine.

Recent technology trends

• Most of these OEMs are modifying their existing conventional spark-ignition engines to develop H2ICEs.
• This is because a four-stroke H2ICE operates on the same cycle as regular natural gas engine and shares most of the components.
• H2ICE, however, requires minimum changes to the fuel injection and ignition systems along with different controls to handle high pressure hydrogen fuel and the corresponding light changes to the cylinder head.
• With higher part-sharing and a known technical arena, R&D costs required to develop H2ICE from a base spark-ignition engine are much lower than the cost of FCEV development.
• Also, with these engines being manufactured in the same production facilities and following the same manufacturing processes as conventional fossil-fuel ICE, with limited changes, economies of scale could be achieved faster. Moreover, the existing and established ICE supply chain can be leveraged efficiently.

Challenges

• An area where additional investment would be needed is that H2ICE require a storage tank similar to FCEVs.

FCEV

• In comparison to H2ICE, fuel cell technology is very cost-intensive.
• Operationally, it requires pure hydrogen and a high specification compressor to supply compressed air.
• Intricate designs of critical components such as bipolar plates, membranes, etc, add to the cost.
• Also, new development and testing methods are required to validate the technology.

A promising future

• H2ICE will require minimum incremental changes to the conventional powertrain and vehicle architecture, which makes it a logical option, especially for cost-conscious markets such as India, Southeast Asia, Africa, etc.
• It can also potentially open up new opportunities such as retrofitting of the current on-road ICE commercial vehicle fleet, long distance intercity buses, etc.
• The fuel cell technology is more expensive, but both technologies (fuel cell and H2ICE) share the same infrastructure. Therefore, development of any one technology will consequently help the development of the other. Overall, H2ICE offers an immediately viable powertrain option for decarbonisation in the medium- and heavy-duty vehicle application in India.
• It can be a bridging technology to remain cost-competitive till the fuel cell technology is commercialised while propelling the development of the hydrogen infrastructure.