Liebherr says hydrogen wheel loader beats BEVs – are they proper?

Liebherr is urgent forward with its efforts to part out fossil fuels on its job websites, however they don’t suppose battery-electric is the very best answer for the heaviest heavy gear – and the corporate’s newest hydrogen-powered wheel loader looks as if it’s struggling to show that time.

Regardless of the corporate’s efforts to convert among the largest development and mining machines on Earth to battery-electric energy (efforts which have seen greater than one million tons of fabric muscled apart), the corporate says it’s struggling to make a 40+ ton electrical wheel loader make business sense.

At first blush, these seem to be contradictory statements – however cling on. Mining gear like large excavators and 100+ ton haul vans spend a ton of time in a single place, and have a tendency to function in environments which have constant entry to grid energy. That’s why it is smart for Liebherr to impress its 300 ton cellular container crane, however why it might not make sense to impress something a lot larger than their L 507 E compact loader.

Liebherr believes batteries don’t is smart for gear like this 40 ton wheel loader that may very well be requested to function in areas the place electrical energy could be laborious to come back by. And, whereas Volvo is engaged on methods to convey energy to the job web site and Moog is engaged on modular batteries to do the identical factor, Liebherr is pushing hydrogen combustion as an answer for job websites that require tons of of kW of labor to be performed on a single shift.

And, as an off-road answer, it’s value noting that MW-scale batteries can be so heavy, utilizing present expertise, that they’re simply as more likely to sink into the mud and earth as they’re to successfully transfer it.

Liebherr L 566 H wheel loader

Although Liebherr didn’t launch any specs on its L 566 H, the diesel-powered L 566 Liebherr wheel loader has an working weight vary of as much as 58,310 kilos, and is able to carrying buckets as much as 15.7 cubic yards (for context, a full-sized pickup mattress has a 2-3 yard capability and might haul about one yard of sand and gravel).

The L566 H is anticipated to carry out not less than in addition to its diesel-fueled counterpart, however with a fraction of the tailpipe emissions.

That stated, getting the hydrogen to the tractor stays as large an issue as getting electrical energy to it. “To make progress in hydrogen analysis, we have to have entry to hydrogen,” says Dr. Ing. Herbert Pfab, Chief Technical Officer of Liebherr Bischofshofen. “We constructed this filling station (on the Liebherr plant in Bischofshofen) to additional advance our targets for decarbonizing development equipment.”

Electrek’s Take

Look, Liebherr can discuss up its new hydrogen gear all it wats, however the actuality of this cynical money seize may be seen within the first press picture (at high). When you can’t see it: it’s the MAN truck. Considered one of 200 examples of a hydrogen combustion semi constructed to show that the tech isn’t prepared.

MAN Truck’s notoriously hydrogen-skeptical CEO, Alexander Vlaskamp, informed reporters that it was, “unattainable for hydrogen to successfully compete with battery electrical vans,” again in January. “Right this moment you can not purchase hydrogen for lower than 13 or 14 euros … and it’s not inexperienced.”

Frankly, not a lot has modified since then – and it’s laborious to take a look at these hydrogen tasks as something, apart from a way to funnel some hydrogen incentive cash into the company coffers.

That’s my take. When you can consider one other one, tell us about it within the feedback.

SOURCES | IMAGES: Liebherr, by way of Development Gear.