Here is the transcript of the Webinar to Discuss Key Findings, presented by the U.S. Department of Energy's Vehicle Technologies Office.
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David:
I want to alert everyone that this meeting is being recorded and as such I do want to; I'm going to provide a statement on policy of recorded sessions. Let me bring it up. Connie, do you have the statement in front of you?
Connie Bezanson:
I have it in front of me. I can read it if you like, Dave.
David:
Thank-you, my system just shut itself down.
Connie Bezanson:
We'll let everybody know this Webex call is being recorded and it may be posted on DOEs website or used internally. If you do not wish to have your voice recorded, please do not speak during the call. If you do not wish to have your image recorded, please turn off your camera or participate by phone. If you speak during the call or use a video connection, you are presumed to consent to recording and use of your voice or image. Thank-you.
Thank-you very much. David, next slide, please. So again, welcome to today's session. This involves our October 9 EERE issued requests for information on research needs and opportunities related to medium-duty, heavy-duty vehicle. That RFI sought feedback from industry academia, research laboratories, government agencies and other stakeholders as well. It included five categories of questions as you see here, and as we launch into our feedback session this will actually be the structure of our discussion today, relaying the feedback that we got on each category. These categories had a total of 62 questions. We got 867 responses and you see the number of responses per category. Many in the internal combustion engine powertrain fuels in the mission control area it's just as many and battery electrification but a really good subset for each category. The questions and the categories arranged from each office within the sustainable transportation sector in EERE Michael Berube who's with us today will provide some introduction to the sustainable transportation work that we do and it's focused on research that will lead to a more portable efficient and secure transportation energy, it includes three major offices vehicle technologies hydrogen and fuel cell technologies and bioenergy technologies next slide.
Today's webinar we will walk through each category and share key findings. Each category will be followed by a short question and answer, so please submit your questions using the Webe Q&A feature at the bottom right side of your screen. Now the recording that we're doing today today's webinar and the PowerPoint presentation that we'll show will be posted at our website here. the PowerPoint slides will be posted as soon as this afternoon and the recording will be posted as soon as we have it cleared through all of all of the authorities within DOE. I do want to say that our team does continue to review the detailed responses and this information is very important to our department, to our offices, in order shaping our research focus areas in the future they were the RFI including other conversations other industry stakeholder activities will inform and guide our immediate R&D portfolio for years to come. not only through multi-year program plans but technology road maps as well, and with that, next slide please. I'd like to introduce Michael Berube, our acting deputy assistant secretary for sustainable transportation. Michael?
Michael Berube:
Thank-you very much, Dave, and thank-you to the hundreds of people who took time to provide feedback to us through the RFI and who are joining us here today. It’s critically important for us to be having these types of conversations with a broad diverse group of stakeholders. As a government we take it very seriously, our responsibility, very seriously to make sure that we are doing the work that is serving all of the country and all of our national interest. We can only do that by having conversations with everyone and getting your feedback on where you believe they're the most best opportunities for us to focus in the future. Just to take a few minutes here I would say we at DOE have done a lot of work of course in medium heavy-duty trucking for many years now the Super Truck program, which has gone through two iterations I think really has been a benchmark program it set an audacious goal when it started to improve the freight efficiency by 100% basically essentially cut the energy use in half. I'm very proud to say that as we come to the close of the second round the Super Truck 2 that that goal is being achieved is being achieved not just with you know kind of theoretical laboratory type work but with real technologies that are out on the road today. About two or three years ago we started really looking out to the future though and saying. Where is the next 10 years going? How is this industry changing? Richard you want to go to the next slide. You know when we look transportation is clearly fundamental to our way of life, we move 11 billion tons of freight 3 trillion vehicle miles driven but the nature of transportation and the transportation industry, the transportation vehicles, the providers of the energy are changing rapidly. You know today as we look especially across the freight world, we've seen fifty percent of freight moves less than a hundred miles from origin to destination, so that is when you think about that and you think about where freight's moving it's a diverse group as many of you know it's not just all long-haul trucking where previous super truck programs have really focused its attention. you look at package delivery pre-pandemic we were on a tremendous growth in the amount of package delivery, now in the pandemic and certainly post pandemic we think that number is going to go up dramatically. We're seeing many new business models for freight movement. We're certainly seeing many new propulsion modes across the freight spectrum. Many in early stages but moving rapidly. So, when we look at this overall you know and as we do, we looked at it we said it's important as we think about our future research agendas think very broadly, you know internal combustion engines certainly have been the core of the work as well as light-weighting that we've done but as we look to the future, we see that being a much broader set of technology. David mentioned our different Offices that fall under my responsibility certainly on the Vehicle's office where we do work not just on IC engines but we do of course a lot of work on electrification and batteries will be a key part of freight movement in the future. We have created a new research program Energy Efficient Mobility Systems looking at the transportation system as a whole and that will play a critical part thinking not just about the vehicles but the whole business operations and how freight moves across different hands, how consumers are involved in that in movement of freight and choosing how they get their goods ultimately to their home rather than just thinking of moving goods from manufacturer to the store. Certainly light-weighting continues to play a role in there, but our Hydrogen and Fuel Cells office is also a critical part. We launched a major new research program this past year focused squarely on long-haul heavy-duty trucks with a goal in five years from now to be able to make the fuel cells from those vehicles be in a range where they are both fully practical, they meet all the needs of the trucking industry, they meet the life and mileage needs, and are affordable, that will take a lot of work. In our Bioenergy program which is working on creating drop-in hydrocarbon fuels from waste carbon resources, municipal solid waste, bio waste, biosolids, all of the above. All of these we think will play a role in the future movement of freight. If Richard you want to go forward a slide here, and go for one more actually.
So, when we looked across our across the transportation sector overall, we think these three key points, energy affordability, energy integration, and the critical aspect in the future will be energy storage. As many of you know any of you who are working on the business side of this industry, all your options have to be affordable. You have to be able to look at the pennies if you will that drive your business. but as we're looking at that and think of the R&D we're certainly focused on how do we drive down the cost of technology, but also trying to understand the affordability from the broadest aspect. And that's where things like electrification where you have the promise of lower cost per mile which is going to be critically important maybe you can cover a higher upfront cost. Looking at the energy integration, how do we take multiple energy systems especially this is where hydrogen comes in a lot, we can think about hydrogen not just for transportation but hydrogen being used as part of energy storage, being used for decarbonization in other sectors, being used integrated in with our nuclear power industry. And in the future energy storage not just from batteries, but from all means will be critically important and we think about the medium and heavy-duty trucking sector in a future where you have potentially significant numbers of those vehicles being powered by batteries or by hydrogen that forms a form of energy storage that might be able to have an interaction back to the grid or back to an individual company where they're using that energy stored on the vehicle to interact with their buildings in grid interactive buildings and to manage their overall cost. So again, we see a very rich future here in some ways it's a complex future but there's a lot of opportunity. And you saw that in the questions we asked in the RFI we asked a very broad set of questions much broader than where we were focused in previous Super Truck programs as we share results from that today and have more dialogue with all the different stakeholders on the call here we will be focusing again on the broadest set of technologies to help address the industry, the needs of the industry, but also the environmental needs whether that be certainly CO2, but also local air quality where trucks have a critical role to play as well. So, with that Dave, I am going to hand it back to you and look forward to all the feedback you're going to provide as well as questions from the audience throughout the afternoon.
David:
Thank-you, Michael. Thank-you for those comments, and as you can see Michael’s portfolio was very broad over 800 million dollars of R&D, critical R&D for the transportation sector very significant for our nation. Now I'd like to introduce Ken Howden from the Vehicle Technologies team. Ken's been a long-standing director for the 21st century truck partnership and he was he provided key leadership and insight in the development of this request for information and Ken is actually going to take it from here and facilitate the rest of the discussion, so Ken? You're on mute, Ken.
Ken Howden:
Thanks, Dave. Welcome, everyone, to our report out on the RFI to which you contributed a lot of time and effort. You know I thank you for all your submissions we hope this afternoon that you'll be seeing the result of our review of all of your input. I’d like to first introduce David Anderson, program manager for Energy Efficient Mobility Systems in the Vehicle Technologies Office, and he'll be covering freight operational efficiency and systems. David?
David Anderson:
All right, thank-you, Ken. As Ken said the first category in the request for information in the RFI was focused on freight operational efficiency, and so this topic aligns very closely with the EEMS program the Energy Efficient Mobility Systems program, which I manage. In the EEMS program as in this category we are focused not just on individual vehicle and component technologies but where, excuse me, we're looking at how the overall freight system works, and trying to understand how it can be improved by leveraging new technologies new modes and new services. So, if we go on to the next slide, the introduction to the freight operational efficiency category in the RFI is shown here. I’m not going to read it out loud to you all but I will point out some key words. We're focused on efficiency at the transportation system level, that's important, the system level this includes connectivity and automation in technologies like that it also includes last mile options and new operating patterns. We're cognizant of the fact that freight is not just moved by a single truck from start to end on this tour but it goes through a series of multiple vehicles and multiple processes. This category was broken down into five subcategories some of which had multiple questions within them. Across all the questions we got 132 responses, now that's not 132 individual replies, for example if a single organization responded to say five questions, that counts as five towards this total. Alright on the next slide we see the first subcategory a within this category and so this was focused on trends in metrics specifically in the context of a shift to shorter distances for freight movement and the use of hub and spoke regional hall operations. This subcategory received 19 total responses to its one question. That one question is shown on the next slide, and it asks about data gaps in current and future freight operations and what data sources might be used to fill those gaps. You can read the question here on the slide but the summary of the responses is as follows, there was an identified need for common methods for reporting collecting and analyzing real-world data using cloud-based telematics and there was a stated desire for sharing this data via open data platforms. There were also a number of data gaps identified including information on load size and travel time and cost maintenance labor distance and type of freight being moved in different duty cycles. there are also data gaps noted in terms of charging requirements for electric drive trucks, power train of power requirements for different vocations, and distributions of miles for different payload sizes. So, quite a few data gaps were noted. It was also noted that data needs or broad because of the broad range of vocations that exist in the medium and heavy-duty sector. It's not all about freight movement, but there are work trucks that also perform different functions. Data regarding truck loading and unloading periods idling periods fueling charging and rest periods was also mentioned. Basically, anytime the truck is not logging productive miles. Driver demographics and preferences were also referenced as a data need. As was resale value resale value of different truck types and technologies due to its big impact on Total Cost of Ownership or TCO. From a systems perspective, respondents noted that we do not have much data on the effect that truck operation has on the traffic and vehicles surrounding the trucks especially in a situation that involves connected and automated truck systems and vehicle systems. There were a number of references to the VIUS [BR(1] survey the Vehicle Inventory and Use Survey from our colleagues over at DOT and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, and the fact that the VIUS survey the last survey was from 2002 and may not be representative of today's situation. I will note that BTS is about to conduct a new VIUS survey for 2021 with data expected to be available in 2023 and DOE is one of several agencies that are participating in this effort with the DOT BTS. Finally, we were reminded that defining a single comprehensive rate efficiency metric is hard it's difficult. It's hard to capture all of the aspects that are relevant for freight movement in one metric that encompasses distance and time and cost and energy and emissions and mass and volume and different metrics might be pertinent for different vocations. So, despite this difficulty we were reminded that if it can be measured it can be improved and conversely if we want to improve something we have to first measure it, so metrics are critically important. The next slide moves on to the next sub-category within the freight efficiency category and it's focused on current trends in long haul in regional hall and how they might change and what implications those changes might be. There were three questions in this subcategory and there were a total of 51 total responses across the three questions. The next slide shows the first question, and this question asked if there are better ways to measure system level efficiency than the ton miles per gallon metric that we've so often used in the past. The summary is shown here. We heard that fueling and charging times must be included in any measure of productivity these are times when the vehicle is not being productive by definition and it's currently not captured in the ton mile per gallon metric. Metrics should account for both driver on-road time moving and not moving time. There are responses about productivity more broadly versus tonnage specifically, since the ton mile per gallon metric is not applicable to work trucks, for example when a truck is doing stationary operation perhaps using a power take out so measuring productivity per unit of energy or per unit of TCO was given as a type of metric that would cover work trucks. There was also a discussion of a time-based metric such as energy per hour or hours per ton mile rather than a distance-based metric. Responses continued by pointing out that system efficiency measurements must accommodate new powertrain technologies such as battery electric vehicles and include greenhouse gas emissions or CO2 emissions. The notion of accommodating battery electric vehicles means it must consider the weight and capacity displacement for the energy storage and account for other capabilities that might be gained from these technologies. Responses also suggested that not only the weight and volume of freight but the value of freight being transported must be included given that it has an impact on the Total Cost of Ownership. In the context of systems level freight improvement, it was noted that any efficiency metric must be applied at the fleet level instead of to just individual vehicles so that it can account for things like dead heading miles versus productive miles and encourage less deadheading and more productivity. And finally, it was stated that we really need a detailed nationwide model to analyze the freight sector and determine what the best way to measure system efficiency really is.
We go on to the next slide, it shows the second question in the subcategory. This question further probed how to change the ton miles per gallon metric and it asked if it should include other factors. Responses indicated that again TCO or Total Cost of Ownership is fundamental, it's fundamental to the industry and includes a number of items including capital cost, fuel cost, maintenance cost, battery life, and cost related to that infrastructure cost. In general, it was agreed that volume and weight metrics are important, but again, the value of that freight must be included. Other responses agreed that our current metric, more generally stated as ton miles per kilowatt hour, is critical but it's really only applicable to the small percentage the 10 percent or so of trucks that are weight constrained it doesn't really mean much for trucks that tend to cube out first. We were again reminded that TCO is as important as freight efficiency but it's hard to combine these things into a single metric responses agree that energy time TCO and CO2 emissions are all very important, but difficult to combine. There was a discussion of shifting to an overall CO2 equivalent metric and doing so on a full life cycle basis, which includes the full fuel cycle including extraction and production, processing and refining, transport and use of the fuel. Other responses agreed really with the premise of the question, stating that any new metric must consider and be applicable to less than truckload shipments, changing duty cycles, and a shift towards increasing e-commerce and warehousing.
If we go to the next slide, it shows the next question in this category, which asked about additional opportunities to increase efficiency and which classes provide the biggest opportunities. The responses noted that connectivity and automation are two technology levers that can be used to increase productivity but there needs to be market pull from the industry to incorporate these technologies. There was also a discussion of the potential for long combinational vehicles to increase productivity by increasing the payload. LCVs essentially team two full-size trailers behind the tractor which is currently not allowed in the U.S or at least in most states depending on configuration. Regarding the classes with the biggest opportunity, we were reminded that most of the trucking energy is consumed in classes 7 and 8 so that's the biggest potential, but it was also noted that all classes can benefit from low-cost efficiency solutions. Additional responses discuss managed lanes to alleviate congestion. So, managed lanes could be truck only, or commercial only, or connected and automated vehicle only, they could be limited access, in any case they facilitate steady state speeds and efficient drive cycles for freight vehicles. It was suggested that using connectivity for fleet management especially for urban and regional pickup and delivery represents a big opportunity while vehicle-to-vehicle or V2V communication and higher levels of automation are an opportunity for long-haul trucks carrying larger loads. Responses indicated that there are cost reduction opportunities by applying the research that we've done on component technologies in the light-duty segment, if we apply that to the medium and heavy-duty segment. And finally, again it was stated that we need to do complex systems level modeling and simulation to measure system efficiency and determine where the biggest opportunities lie. The next slide goes to our next sub category in freight efficiency this was also labeled 1b this is not a mistake in my slides rather we inadvertently had two 1b sections in the RFI itself. So, the second 1b question asks a question about the benefits the opportunities and barriers for developing efficient system level freight technologies, and it asks specifically about connectivity and automation there were a total of eight responses for the subcategory in question and they're summarized here. It was noted that electrification could become a powertrain technology of choice for many applications but that it would require changing existing use cases to accommodate this shift to electrification. Changes in terms of trip length and infrastructure. It was also noted that a shift to new models such as hub and spoke freight transport as well as new modes like drones for package delivery must also be considered. Data security was also mentioned as being critical, especially for connected vehicles and systems, and the benefits of connectivity and automation was regarded as still highly uncertain. Since automation relies on high degrees of sensing and perception it was mentioned that the impact of new and different structural materials on that sensing must be considered. There was also a discussion of opportunities to improve system level efficiency by optimizing capacity utilization through applications like shared freight hubs, digital freight contracting platforms, and the like to cut down on dead heading. Responses also talked about understanding the impact of automation on the driver and on costs and on utilization and refueling time requirements, so for example, if automation allows the truck to be utilized more of the time there's more of a penalty for extended refueling and recharging times. Our next slide summarizes further responses which noted an opportunity to leverage existing liquid fuel technologies to enable a switch to low carbon fuel, since there's such an entrenched ecosystem for liquid fuels. Other opportunities were noted for determining computing requirements both on and off board the vehicle, for vehicle and powertrain control, and for developing infrastructure to promote system efficiency. Again, things like manage lanes EV charging fleet monitoring and control. Additional responses stated that we have to ensure that a move to full automation doesn't encourage an overall increase in energy use, that's a potential secondary impact of automation. Opportunities for fleet route optimization, predictive truck maintenance, emissions compliance, and driver coaching via connectivity were also noted although they were characterized as longer-term opportunities. Barriers mentioned specific to connectivity and automation included network bandwidth cyber security concerns and how to develop effective algorithms that leverage cloud and edge computing. An opportunity that was noted was using advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning to manage freight operations though there's a data access barrier to that opportunity. Also, a research opportunity was mentioned focused on understanding driver behavior relative to connected and automated vehicles, specifically operational practices so. For example, in a use case where fully automated trucks transport freight on the freeway but then dock in hubs outside cities for handing control over to humans. Finally, again the need for large scale modeling and simulation to understand the entire opportunity space was noted. The next slide goes on to our next subcategory. Subcategory c which asks about opportunities for alternative fuels and if they will require changes to use cases or if the technology will have to adapt to current use cases. It also asked specifically about infrastructure. There were a total of 16 responses to this subcategory in question and they're summarized here. Responses noted that there are indeed opportunities for a variety of alternative fuels including, electricity specifically clean electricity, natural gas, biofuels, and hydrogen-based fuels. The benefits noted that if we if we successfully address these opportunities, we get cleaner air lower emissions lower cost and ease of operation. One barrier that was mentioned is the typically high cost of adopting these new technologies. It was also noted that different technologies will be adopted based on their application there's no single solution. These were partitioned with liquid fuels being used for long haul, hydrogen being an opportunity for regional haul, and battery electric vehicles for short haul trucking. There was also mentioned that there are issues with natural gas in terms of performance. Regarding infrastructure it was stated that the near-term focus should be on centralized fueling infrastructure and the hub and spoke model with shorter trip lengths supports the trend towards electrification with centralized charging, and similar to other questions we heard that class 7 and 8 trucks represent the largest opportunity.
The next slide continues summarizing our responses it indicated proper planning for infrastructure and fleets would enable the right sizing of powertrains to meet different applications rather than powertrain oversizing which was suggested as the current paradigm. It was also stated that greenhouse gas requirements will dictate the fuel mix and what alternative fuels will ultimately be successful. Additionally, while it was asserted that technology will ultimately have to change to meet existing use cases and provide an attractive Total Cost of Ownership it was also observed that operations are already changing due to other factors, and so it may be a situation where both technology adapts and usage changes to meet somewhere in the middle. Finally, it was reiterated that there's a need for fleet level optimization, beginning with an assessment of energy for the entire delivery chain, not just the line haul trucking portion which Michael suggested up front. Onto the next slide the final subcategory that we had here is subcategory d understanding system constraints. It focuses on the need to build off existing assets and considers improvements both through incremental changes and through disruptive large-scale breakthroughs. We received a total of 38 responses for the five questions in the subcategory. The next slide shows the first sub the first question, which ask about the payload the trucks typically have, how this might change in the future, and in which vocations and classes we anticipate the most growth. Responses told us that payload capacity is dependent on a lot of the aspects of the freight itself and that most class 7 and 8 trucks are volume limited not weight limited, though it depends on the industry. There was an indication that we could increase maximum payload to 91,000 pounds by adding a sixth axle on the tractor trailer combo. There was also a statement that ZEVs zero emission vehicles may need a different classification system since the current gross vehicle weight base classification does not account for the work that a battery electric vehicle is capable of. It was also noted that there are opportunities to increase operational efficiency by increasing the volume of the trailer. The second question which is on the next slide, asks about commercial fueling stations if they're co-located with light-duty fueling stations and it also asks about land constraints. Responses noted that co-location is common although the stations for light-duty vehicles and for medium and heavy-duty vehicles are typically separated within those locations. It was also pointed out that future fueling stations will likely be much more complex than traditional liquid-based fueling stations given the variety of potential fueling options that they will need to accommodate. On the EV charging side it was stated at high power, that is over kilowatt, high power charging will be needed, which will lead to grid impacts which we need more study for, in this case co-location may not be the prevalent model. And finally, it was noted that co-location is not prevalent in urban settings and the hydrogen and EV charging infrastructure may be contrary to the current co-location paradigm. The third question in this subcategory shown here ask about payback period and discount rate. Now we didn't get much quantitative response here but responses did note that it's very application-specific with various responses saying payback is typically one and a half to three years, one stating more than ten years, but that one and a half to two years would be acceptable for class eight trucks. The discount rates that were noted were six to ten percent.
On the next slide we see the fourth question which asked about benefits opportunities and barriers relevant to the system level space. Responses here indicate that EV infrastructure sharing and technology spillover may be more significant in the medium and heavy-duty sector than it is in the light-duty space. There was also a discussion of opportunities for new materials, AI based control of vehicles and fleets, low carbon fuels and life cycle analysis models. Infrastructure was referenced as being a challenge or a barrier to new advanced technologies. While connectivity again vehicle to vehicle or vehicle-to-infrastructure communication was seen as a major opportunity. Additional opportunities were noted for grid side technologies to enable rapid EV charging, for vehicle-to-grid services, for cost-effective hydrogen generation, and portable hydrogen refueling station. So, I’ll note that many of the opportunities mentioned here as well as in some of the previous questions may be discussed in more detail in other categories by other presenters there was quite a broad selection of questions in this category in the RFI and a lot of our responses bled over into the other areas.
Finally, the fifth question in the subcategory shown here it focused on data, can we go back one slide please, thank-you. The fifth question focused on data related to distance traveled relative to payload business drive cycles and fuel consumption. So, the response is reiterated that data gaps continue to exist with respect to operating parameters like truck configuration, usage, location, road conditions, weather, technologies used, hours logged, and differences in driver skill and there's also questions about data ownership. Additionally, some of the measurements mentioned in the question like rolling resistance and aerodynamic drag coefficients were noted as being highly variable and it was also stated that fleets typically don't have the capability to measure these parameters. Other responses noted that payload weight data is not readily available although others responded that responded to that aggregate data sets with this information do exist and are available. And finally, while much of the data that researchers might be interested in is considered highly confidential by fleets and by truck manufacturers, so it's difficult to get access to too much of that data. That concludes the questions that we have for the freight operational efficiency section in the RFI. Ken I can turn it back over to you I’m not sure if we're out of time or if we have time for a question or two.
Thanks. David, we can pause here for a minute in the presentations and ask if anyone in the audience has a question for David. If you could please go into the Q&A box and type in your question, we'll ask David to respond.
All right and not seeing any questions in the Q&A box. There is a question that came in through a chat box about a breakdown of the types of organizations that responded to our RFI whether they're OEMs or fleets or labs or universities etc, and I don't know if that information will be made available let me post the slides or not. Ken, I don't know if you can address that.
Ken Howden:
David, I did you -- could you repeat that?
There was a question about if we will if we can provide a breakdown of the types of organizations that responded to our RFI for example I just gave total number of responses but if there's a breakdown, go ahead.
Ken Howden:
We would have to pull that together we do have it by topic area, but we would probably have to pull that together we do I'll give a link to our website where we're going to give the follow-on information including the recording of this presentation so we can certainly categorize the responses and put that information in there. And there's another question about the recording or the slides being available, we will have a recording of this entire three-hour presentation on the website and we will make that link available later on in the presentation.
And finally, I do see a question before we turn it over to Gurpreet asking if we can elaborate on the issues related to natural gas performance, I can't give you a full explanation now. There were issues noted however yeah in terms of in in terms of performance in terms of power output in terms of efficiency and I think there was one noted regarding storage of course many of these are barriers that our research programs are working to overcome, but thank-you for that question.
Thanks David, thank-you David. We'll address that to some degree in this next section of the presentation.
Sure.
Ken Howden:
Thank-you very much, David, for your presentation. Our next topic area Internal Combustion Engine, Powertrain, Fuels, and Emission Control will be presented by Gurpreet Singh, the program manager for Advanced Engine and Fuel Technologies in the in the Vehicle Technologies Office. Gurpreet?
Gurpreet Singh:
Yeah, thank-you, Ken. I want to start by thanking my team members who summarized most of the 264 responses that we received for this area, I also want to thank those who submitted the responses to our questions, I wanted to thank Mike Weismiller, Siddiq Khan, Kevin Stork and Ken Howden for helping answer most of these questions or responses. So, to start, this fuel cost is a second only to operator cost, it has a significant impact on Total Cost of Ownership. So, let's see what options we have here on the first slide one of the most obvious is to look at gasoline so our first question was, are gasoline are spark ignited fuels and such as gas being attractive and we received overwhelmingly positive response, 21 out of the 22 respondents said yes, they were interested in looking at this area, and we did man we did try to break down the responses by category whenever it was possible so you can see who responded to this this question. Also, the vehicle classes of interest class 2b through 6 were the areas of most interest for spark ignited engines and the applications that were recommended were urban regional transit delivery routes and basically routes that required a lower work factor and lower mileage applications. Many said that vehicle Total Cost of Ownership would benefit from a lower fuel cost and also lower cost of the after-treatment system associated with spark ignited engines. Specific areas that the respondents mentioned for research try to make SI engines more attractive for a medium-heavy-duty application, of course improving efficiency for liquid but as well as gaseous fuels, areas like looking at increasing compression ratio, dilution tolerance, reducing pumping work and friction losses, and also increasing durability that seemed to be a big concern. Lower cost of hybridization when you associate that powertrain with a spark ignited engine was attractive but also having hybridization would help compensate for the low-end torque and launch performance, a shortcoming that people cited with spark ignition engines. So overall, very positive responses to this question and in the interest for spark ignited engines.
Go to the next slide, please. So, looking a little further at gasoline but this time we're asking, is there interest in using gasoline for advanced compression ignition combustion strategies, and this would be things like low temperature combustion GCI. So, responses we received responses from a wide range of stakeholders, 21 in all, and majority of the response is that they were interested in looking at gasoline advanced compression ignition and engines. Also, the interest was driven by the potential for lower cost of fuel, as well as higher efficiency leading to a lower greenhouse gas emissions, also the lower carbon to hydrogen ratio of gasoline, and also potential for lower soot emissions. However, there were those that were disinterested and they argue that there are too many barriers to production of such a concept, things like fuel sensitivity and potentially a more complex after-treatment system that would be needed for advanced gasoline compression emission engines. So, technology such as intake heating and additive injection were just not considered sufficient to overcome these barriers by the folks that were not interested in this concept. So yeah, basically there was a little interest in using a second additive injected into the to help control the combustion the respondents felt that the cost, complexity, and calibration would be a too big of an issue again to bring these engines into production. Next slide, please.
Thank-you. The next question focused around dual fuel engines and just to make sure that the clarify the question here the question pertains to systems that require both fuels to be used all the time, as opposed to systems that can use either fuel and then switch between fuels so just a clarification on the kind of concept that we were looking at. So, we had some mixed responses here as you can see from the slide. There's a potential for lower operating costs what was cited by some of the respondents they suggested fuel combinations such as natural gas and diesel, or ethanol and gasoline were kind of choices of fuels that would be of interest to them in looking at this dual fuel concepts. But again, additional complication and cost seemed to be a general concern across the board and there was a clear preference that if we could use a single fuel in a gasoline compression ignition concept would definitely be less complicated than using the RCCI concept with the dual fuel.
Next slide, please. So, let's move on to gaseous fuels. We asked the question, to what extent are gaseous alternative fuels such as natural gas or LPG of interest to the medium and heavy-duty industry and which classes? So, the responses were overall favorable, and primarily due to low cost and also lower emissions from these engines vehicles. However, there were areas of concern primarily the cost of storage for natural gas and hydrogen. I know in work that we've done we've seen that 80 percent of the total cost increase for these kind of vehicles is associated with cost of the storage and fueling systems. So, that was again a big concern that we've also found in some of our analysis and research. Also, there's a lower efficiency for these engines as a concern especially stoichiometric concepts and then also they decided that there's a lack of driver familiarity and then there's a lack of comfort with gaseous fuels. Also, another area is the limited number of engine models that are available in natural gas operation. And then several people cited that there's also a reduced vehicle resale value which is a concern to them. Also, some felt that natural gas will be surpassed and replaced by hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and electric vehicles. I think one of the most important observations here is that gaseous fuels are seen as remaining a kind of a niche fuel by most of the respondents.
Go to the next slide, please.
OK, moving on to biofuels. We ask the question to what extent are biofuels of interest in the medium and heavy-duty vehicle classes. Everybody here thought biofuels were important as you can see by the responses overwhelmingly positive, everybody thought it was an important area. Carbon reduction is an important corporate and societal goal for most of the respondents, along with improving public image and also potentially to improve performance as well. There was a clear preference among the OEM respondents for what I would call a fungible biofuel such as renewable diesel over a non-fungible one such as FAME-type biodiesel. So, that was one finding. The reason for some of the disinterest we found in the biofuels as you would expect things like cost, usually lower power density, and then concern over the oxygen content and its effect on various aspects of transportation in terms of the pipeline and so forth.
Go to the next slide, please. So, this was a there's really no question that we asked here but we wanted to get thoughts about the opportunities if CO2 equivalent reductions of 80 or more could be obtained by using renewable fuels, how would that impact the thinking of the respondents. So, this wasn't really a question but we could get some thoughts here and many felt that this was a good pathway to greenhouse gas reduction for the trucking sector, there's significant customer interest also in having low greenhouse gas or no greenhouse gas type fuels available. Also, they felt that if we incorporate the biofuels with hybridization that could even further reduce greenhouse gases, and also some made reference to looking at the California low carbon fuel standard is a good model and going forward to looking at low carbon fuels. Next slide, please.
OK, so it's continuing here on the biofuel area there an interest from industry or consumers and research into low life cycle CO2 liquid fuels. Again, here the results were overwhelmingly positive some of the similar answers we heard before carbon reduction is a corporate and a societal goal, along with a goal of improving public image a lot of people cited that. Customers are demanding low carbon approaches as it could be a lower cost for hardware relative to other approaches such as the infrastructure that would be needed for electrification or gaseous fuels, so if there was a fuel available that that could reduce the greenhouse gases by greater than 80% that the respondents felt that would be an approach that would be very favorable for them to alleviate the infrastructure cost. There were reasons for disinterest again including things like cost and warranty concerns, but again overall responses to this question were positive. Next slide, please.
OK, here again, looking further into life cycle CO2 equivalent liquid fuels. This question asked to compare low life cycle CO2 equivalent liquid fuels to again kind of the infrastructure changes that would be required and this question is kind of similar to the previous one. Again, most respondents overwhelmingly positive. The total life cycle costs was stated as being more important than fuel costs, so they want to consider that as the way of looking at the options here but maintain that but maintaining the same infrastructure and vehicle architecture would really be a huge benefit for the industry, that was cited several by several people. And then also kind of on the disinterested side they felt somebody felt that you know if we took that hybridization with conventional fuels that could also reduce CO2 significantly at a lower cost than renewable fuels so there were one or two that cited these concerns. Next slide, please.
OK, and continuing with the biofuels questions here how important to industry and your consumers your customers excuse me is the life cycle is life cycle CO2 equipment emissions for medium and heavy-duty vehicles? So, the strong takeaway from this question is that almost everyone seemed to think that doing a well-to-wheel analysis was the best way to regulate the carbon in the future, that was part of the question how to measure and account for carbon emissions, and OEMs in general said that the CO2 metric is at or near the top of their corporate priority so as I just mentioned earlier too that I think that's very important for their corporate image and also is the priority for society as well. Also, the fact that there's consumer demand for low carbon fuels for again for their corporate image they want to you know be in the forefront of reducing carbon emissions. And also, some state of the regulations are also a driver for renewable fuels. OK, our next slide, please.
OK, now moving on to the engine area. First question we had was, how interested is industry in creating engine design tools that can leverage advancements in computer science and artificial intelligence? And here we have pretty much a unanimous interest in this topic, predictive capability is a key was stated by some people because current models are empirical or tuned which makes them less applicable to new systems. Some of these new systems are big are more and more complicated having this kind of capability would definitely help them reduce the development time as well as getting these engines to market. Industry respondents were interested in increasing access to the high-performance computing capabilities that we have at the DOE labs. Also, there's a strong interest in applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to engine and powertrain controls to optimize performance, so very overwhelmingly positive results to this question. Next slide, please.
This is going back to gasoline engines. So, how important is it to industry to conduct research focused on large bore gasoline engines? Interestingly, this was, you know, responses were pretty much evenly split when these they were scattered a little bit, on the positive side large bore gasoline engines could offer lower operational costs which mentioned earlier in some of the previous questions that we discussed already and also as well as reduced complexity especially for the emission control system as we go forward with lower and lower emissions. Also, since the gasoline engine could potentially cost less, that would increase the ability to combine that with a hybrid powertrain for a greater efficiency, so that was an avenue for a powertrain concept you know using the gasoline engines with the hybrid powertrain. However, some of those that were not interested and didn't support gasoline engines it felt it was due primarily to the low specific power of the engine, not limited performance under high load was cited quite a bit and also in general lower durability of gasoline engines was also cited. OK, next slide, please.
OK, this question is focused around waste heat recovery, so we asked, how interested in industry and further developing waste heat recovery systems or specific components for waste heat recovery systems? So, you see the majority of the respondents were interested. You know there's a cited that there's potential for improved efficiency with waste heat recovery systems and you know to get the final efficiency potential out of the engine you know we have to use the waste recovery system. However, you know a lot of issues were cited on people who weren't interested, issues such as the added weight of the system and of course the complexity and then currently the return on investment wasn't in the right time frame for most of the respondents, and we didn't really see too many responses in terms of the specific components you know what should be developed but kind of overall general responses to waste heat recovery systems. Next slide, please.
The next two questions focus around emissions is a long question but in summary we asked, you know, what additional research can DOE undertake to help further reduce NOx and PM emissions. So, we have a quite a number of responses here. We'll try to go through some of these. Some responses focused around low temperature combustion NOx control it's a certainly a challenge it's a very challenging area to address and should be looked at further. Further research on ducted fuel injection was cited as an area that DOE should look at going forward and we have been. This is a concept that was developed by a Sandia National Labs and is being researched by many institutions. The next slide we have responses; continue in the next slide.
So, looking at optimizing the entire system somebody called it the co-co-optimized, optimizing engine after treatment as well as fuels in common in combination to improve efficiency as well as including system level modeling to understand the whole system. Improving conversion efficiency of the various mission control components, especially at lower exhaust temperatures, this is currently a very active area for us at DOE we have many research projects in this area as we see the exhaust temperatures getting lower with higher efficiency engines this is becoming critical so we have a goal of 90% conversion at 150 degrees c which is the goal for our program. NOx and PM reduction as well as extended durability has become a concern for the heavy-duty industry as we see numbers of durability potentially up to 800,000 miles, that's the concern that the industry is having, how to meet the lower emissions so they're asking that we address some of the durability issues with emission control systems. OK, next slide, please.
This issue, this question, excuse me focus around the CARB southwest research setup that mostly you're familiar with. So, the question of what technical challenges and system requirements are you envisioning for this type of after treatment system and what research would be useful for DOE to undertake. So, some of the concerns about the system exhaust system of performance under varying load conditions especially I think during you know the low load conditions it was a big concern, it's a dual leg system with a lot of components. concerns about SCR, dosing control, and light off, overall thermal management, because it is a pretty complex system and then also because of that the system packaging concerns, and again as well as reliability maintenance and service. Again, as well also though that that would lead into the challenges under of warranty and durability cited by a lot of people, and also the obvious one will be cost and then the weight increase associated with the system. So, further research is needed to optimize after treatment. With the other components of optimizing fuel injection and EGR control and boosting and also incorporating hybridization with advanced combustion strategies and having a real demonstration was also suggested by a lot of respondents.
OK, and the last question in the area, and there is just a question on what additional development topics should DOE look at and we gave some examples in the question itself and 16 responses. The responses are basically in the order in which they appeared most often and it was in the responses that we got. So, looking further at turbocharging systems looking at the potential for higher temperature materials, excuse me, as well as coatings for the turbocharger as well as a exhaust manifold and so forth, looking at incorporating e-boosters, helping to drive EGR as well. So, these are the areas that were brought up quite often in the responses, improving fuel injection, looking at the internal flow of the fuel injector, the actual spray, direct injection of gaseous fuels. In terms of fuel injection we have a lot of work going on looking at the internal flows especially at the advanced photon source at Argonne, looking at the sprays coming out at numerous facilities at our labs as well as modeling this work so that there's a lot of work within this area, of course there's always more we can we can do but a very important area looking at the sprays. Thermal barrier coatings were mentioned quite often, ways to use these to increase exhaust temperature to help the waste deep recovery systems and the turbocharging system, as well as protecting pistons and looking at thermal swing coatings, it's a way of providing perhaps additional efficiency improvement, and again more heat to the exhaust for the turbocharging than the waste recovery system. Sensors were mentioned quite a bit. The sensors for NOx, PM, ammonia, on board predictive diagnostics and also looking at how to improve the durability of sensors was a concern that was brought up by a few people. Valve control systems, cylinder deactivation systems, doing more work in those areas and the system bringing those into the full engine efficiency improvement pathway, friction reduction, better lubricants, surface texture to reduce friction were areas that were mentioned, as well as high temperature materials from the piston turbocharger valves and other areas that could benefit from higher temperature materials. So, with that that's my last slide, so you can go into some questions.
Thank-you, Gurpreet, we do have some questions in the Q&A box, I can read them to you. The first one is can you elaborate on the issues related to natural gas performance.
I'll try to answer this, and I'll have my colleague Kevin Stork also chime in; he focuses on this area. I think the natural gas again, we're mostly at the spark ignited natural gas circumstance their issues with, with performance in terms of power density. Especially at low loads. Another concerns that we've seen. Kevin, you have any comments in that respect?
Kevin Stork:
Sure. Yeah, definitely. The part of it or competition or it, if you will. Is, trying to get comparable efficiency diesel without requiring super expensive emission control. From the engine side. Now, as it's important to realize that as Gurpreet mentioned, yeah, one of the biggest cost issues for natural gas is the on board fuel storage. To the extent that if we can't really knocked down some of the costs there, we're gonna be, you know, basically treading water on the engine side. Regardless, I mean, no matter how well we do, it's still a, huge lift to deal with roughly 80% of the cost penalty on the fuel storage side. But yeah, I mean, our target for sure, is to try to get diesel like efficiencies without going to operational regimes that will require us to use very expensive emission control. So, threading a needle there to some extent, most natural gas engines, as I think it was Jeff Clarke asked the question. I'm sure you know this, Jeff, but most natural gas engines out there in the market today are operate in stoichiometric mode. And the reason is, of course, for manageable emission control costs, you can use three-way catalysts. So, that's the main issue with the performance as we see it.
Thanks, Kevin. There's another question on natural gas. Relating back to question 2.8.4. You covered a lot of responses. Were there any questions related to LPG?
Well, there was a, we folded in the LPG and natural gas into one question. I don't think we had a response to LPG, but we did have a question. that mentioned LPG.
Yes. Yeah. We did mention LPG in the question. So, I'm not sure I quite understand the question either.
I guess he was asking if you've got any feedback on LPG. The use of LPG.
OK.
Yes. yes, we did. I guess we're gonna have to handle this offline.
Sure.
For a specific response, I can’t speak to it right now.
OK. There's another question additional for 2.h additional development responses don't seem to align with low temperature combustion efforts, is this correct? If so, does this point toward and minimize, interest in the LTC area?
No, I mean, these are general responses, I think these areas do apply equally to low-temperature combustion as well as, you know, conventional SI and data combustion areas, like improved turbo charging fuel injection and so forth, so I'm not sure on the question. I mean, we were looking at all areas. You know, all types off combustion, but, my view overall, in our program, we have, produced some of the effort on low temperature combustion. But these areas would apply to both, I think.
And one other question. What do you mean by large-bore gasoline engines? Generally, spark ignited engines are not limited as bore size increases, more cylinders could be added that this increases size and weight. It seems impractical way to make large, heavy-duty engines.
Yeah, I think I would agree. I don't think that would go towards heavy-duty. Maybe it would be more appropriate for medium-duty. So, you know not the kind of bore size you see in heavy-duty inline six-cylinder engine anymore towards the medium-duty type of application?
OK. Thank you Gurpreet and Kevin, if there aren’t any other questions in this area, we'll go ahead, move to our next topic area.
Steven Boyd, program manager for batteries and electrification and the VTO -- Vehicle Technologies Office, will now be presenting our topic area on batteries, electrification and charging in medium-duty and heavy-duty trucks. Steven?
Steven Boyd:
All right, thank-you, Ken. Let's go ahead and dive into it. We're now in the third half of our program, so thanks everyone for staying tuned here. Could you go to the next slide, Richard. OK, so kicking it off for batteries, electrification and charging, our first question here was what factors are most important and motivating choice to pursue powertrain systems for medium and heavy-duty trucks that are all battery versus battery dominant say hybrid plug in or some of these other variants. We had 20 responses, and just overall, we're gonna follow the same format here where the questions of the top of the slide and what we've done is summarized the responses we've got, kind of in these bullets in the bottom half of the slide here. So, for this one, we had a bunch of different responses and you'll see in the lower right-hand corner, there's kind of a little word cloud here the size of those are relative to sort of the number of times that folks mentioned that and so, you see there the infrastructure is kind of one of the largest ones that was mentioned most. That includes vehicle charging infrastructure or fueling infrastructure availability and cost of that is important obviously. TCOs or the total cost of ownership of these vehicles and technologies emissions as well as environmental factors included with that and the capability of those vehicles. So, that's how much it can haul, that it so have a kind of minor points there. The vehicle range vehicle reliability, fueling time, as a consideration and the education needed deserves like that. In these, you know, responses, I think the environmental one, emissions was one of the most prevalent. This could be general environmental concerns include, either regulated or greenhouse gas emissions or taxes, and some kind of lumped in any corporate sustainability or environmental sustainability goals with that as well. I mentioned infrastructure, including fueling, TCO, also included any sort of general costs or whether it's battery technology or infrastructure costs, costs for charging, and we also group reliably along with durability and/or warranty. We also included in each of these slides kind of, a quote that we thought was worth highlighting in this report out. And so, for this one, it's that at the moment there's infrastructure challenges with some of these and that the TCO is an important factor.
OK, next slide, please? All right, the with this question, we were interested in the three most ideal applications for battery electric heavy-duty trucks and then as sort of follow on questions here, we're looking for the most probable entry point, for these vehicles, the most attractive features for these vehicles and the range that should be targeted. The next we had a variety of responses, for this question, obviously, there's a lot of things being asked for here. So, I'm gonna run through this summary, and then on the next slide, we actually have a table that kind of presents these and a little bit more detail just because they're so varied. Delivery was the number one sort of most frequent response, we received this. you know, obviously there's a lot of things that back into that which we'll get to in a second here, followed by either drayage or short haul types of hauling vehicles and urban busses as well. Some probable entry points or sort of attractive features for these vehicles. Short routes or short ranges or short shifts. Right? Anything that could benefit, obviously from electric vehicle that has, you know, some reduced capability when it comes to vehicle operation, or range. Zero or low emissions or noise whether that's, you know, seen as an important factor for that particular vehicle or whether it's seen as a benefit in terms of vehicle operation. Certainly, stop and go operation are attractive feature for some of these vehicles. And also recognize that many of these vehicles can even currently achieve positive or similar total cost of operation. As I mentioned the range estimates vary greatly. and you know, it's just some summary comments here. Overall, you know, 100 miles per day was often cited for medium-duty 1 to 200 per day for some Class 7 and 8 vehicles, and of these many mentioned on route or on operation opportunity charging. So, the idea that even over a vehicle's route out of use. There is potential to, do some vehicles charging.
Next slide, please. So, this is the table that I was mentioning. See here there's on the left a particular application that responses have mentioned. And the parenthesis there, that's the kind of frequency the number of times we saw that occurring, some particular features and quotes there. So again, this is answering the question, you know what sort of vehicle attributes could be seen as positive, what this vehicle is expecting to go well with, and then also on the far right there, the range requirements. And so that first one that first one is summarizing, what we saw in terms of what's required for range and then, you know, as we go down here, I won't go through each one of these categories. But you see, that variety responses and more common at the top there in terms of some of the short haul, urban transit, refuse vehicles, stop and go operation drayage trucks or short, short local range shipping things like that, I'm getting some comments. It's really hard to hear me. I can try to put my mic even closer, and I hope that's better for folks. Sorry following the slides and should be following the chat as well. I'm gonna try to do it like this, and I hope that helps, folks. Thanks. Thanks for the feedback there.
All right, slide 3c then. The mission of VTO is to fund early-stage, high-risk R&D. And then the question here is, you know, what are the most specific other areas we should be focusing on right in this, this technical area of batteries, electrification, charging. Most responses, of course, sort of, they fell in into those technology areas that many of the work that's being done for these, whether it's vehicle drive systems or battery electric chemistry for light-duty vehicles will also be applicable to medium and heavy-duty And, for those same components, reducing costs is important. Improving reliability is an important area that we could focus on as well as a commonality or standardization across platforms, you know, so translating from light, medium and heavy-duty. In addition to common charging vehicle charging solutions, battery R&D was one of the areas that was frequently highlighted cells, modules, impacts kind of across the board for battery systems, including solid state and other new chemistries that focus on cells about critical materials. Critical materials for us is primarily focused on a cobalt production and then focusing on higher density, lower costs, faster charging cells, cells with greater lifetimes as well. Additionally, responses mentioned high voltage electric drive systems, and that's high voltage was specified. 1200 to 1700 volt types of systems. A feature, Wide Bandgap devices, and did an additional electric motors that air suited for medium and heavy-duty vehicles with high torque, high efficiency and good thermal performance to meet, you know, perhaps a more demanding application in terms of medium and heavy-duty versus light-duty. And it was also a couple mentions for electric heat pumps of electric machines that would be suitable for climate control compressor. And lastly here, technologies for, high power DC fast charging that's suitable for these sort of vehicles. So, that's up to and including and beyond one megawatt of charging power to get really fast charging time for these types of vehicles and including scalable business models for charging. Just the idea that you know this type of high-power draw can be a limiting factor when you go to look at, paying for electricity for that sort of a high demand.
OK, next slide, please. All right. Getting into further into batteries here. So, this 3D section will have a number of subsections here, So alright, diving in. Our first question off the bat was what cost do we think? Asking for responses to “What cost can batteries achieve that would be of interest in terms of vehicle applications?” Most centered around the $100 to $125 per kilowatt hour. Some said some of the medium-duty could, you know, could go with maybe a little bit higher in terms $150 per kilowatt hour. And then a few even said urban used so possibly shorter range vehicles may be those of those 100 mile vehicles that some people mentioned could even go up to $200 per kilowatt hour. But a few responses still stuck to what is often cited as a kind of common touch point of $100 per kilowatt hour for battery storage. Many responses did, highlight need for standardization in cells or packs of modules. Which we'll talk about some or in these following slides here. Okay, I got I got a much better Thank you. OK, good. The next slide, please, Richard.
All right, so for production volumes, we you know, we just wanted to some interest in response in terms of what folks thought in terms of production for batteries, we had a varied responses here. Substantial variation in responses. You know, we had some that projected, that at least 20-25% of heavy-duty vehicles may be electrified in the near term, so that's kind of hinting at what sort of production volumes might be might be coming in the near term. Again, needs for standardization was a common point amongst the responses and also focused on trying to keep the TCO low, but for low volume production vehicles. So, this would perhaps a hinting at a near term entry point for some of these delivery type vehicles that have a little range. Andi can offer a load a near term low TCO. And since we had such varied responses, we pulled out a number of different specific responses here, including a production volume for 10 million cells, assuming a 50 amp-hour size cell, would justify the production of a purpose built cell for these types of vehicles and then a projection in terms of what folks are looking at in terms of time frame. So, by 2030 perhaps half the vehicles, would be EVs in this area, so you can, you know, translate projections, right? You can start to think about what that would mean in terms of battery volumes in the near term leading up to that and starting either production or sell designs that would help to support that sort of a projection.
OK, next slide, please. So, concerns specifically for batteries aspect, for commercial light-duty systems that would be or would not be suitable for heavy-duty for medium and heavy-duty and then inherent features that would complicate the scale up of the same vehicle of the same battery types. So again, summarizing responses here, most cited concerns, the weight and size of these types of batteries can affect both the truck payloads or the volume available to package batteries on board vehicle, battery cycle in lifetime requirements. So, can these batteries meet the sort of durability requirements that we talked about expected for medium and heavy-duty vehicles? Certainly battery life, we understand, can be affected by a fast charging requirements for batteries as well as you know, upwards of cycles that are that are expected from this type of a truck. Thermal management challenges were also brought up, keeping batteries within, duration, temperatures, meeting power requirements and meeting energy requirements. So, both for vehicle utility and also for vehicle range and then highlighting high voltage operation. You know, we mentioned as elevated system voltages as well. The folks are interested in medium and heavy-duty vehicles. OK, next slide.
Another question on batteries here, discussing the benefits of drawback of the idea of a purpose-built battery electric truck chassis. So, that's a truck that's designed to be an electric vehicle versus something that's perhaps retrofitted, into an existing chassis. Again, a summary of responses here on the left for a purpose built meant to be an EV sort of truck, the pros of better battery pack and module integration to a structure. We understand that, you know, cons with obviously developing a dedicated product could be higher costs for higher effort, longer lead times, perhaps for this sort of design and requiring some sort of enough volume production to get to an economy of scale. On the right here, utilizing existing chassis is certainly lower costs, because perhaps it's something that's already been developed or development costs have already been paid and easing and quick adoption for the technology. But with a con of not being optimized necessarily for a battery pack size, weight and perhaps even packaging in placement of a battery on this sort of chassis. OK, next one.
And continuing on batteries but specific to battery modules. The question is, you know would a modular battery pack that scales with truck size and vocation be preferable, were possible across both hybridization and electric vehicles, or is it better to custom design a battery pack for the truck entirely? For the summary here most said that Yes, that a modular sort of approach is a benefit to adoption of the technology. That and the second there. The second bullet there that modular batteries can help to enable hybridization. Perhaps battery swapping or some sort of scalable option and could ease upgrading as well. Some folks expressed concerns that modular systems may run into a safety considerations the same in terms of swapping or could run into challenges in terms of optimization for space and storage. Others, that even beyond battery modules, noted that modular control systems could be a benefit for this type of modular storage solution. And then at the end here, noting that modular strategies could refer to a range a systems and that those could have various challenges and benefits here. So, I think some possibilities there but would require some design considerations as well. Okay, this specific responding to the comment of tradeoffs between battery replacement or module repair versus the single pack. In the summary here overall, the full or modular battery placement was overall preferred versus a single pack. But you see, there's a number of different pros and cons here. You know, for modular obviously could have lower costs, but would require some additional rigor in terms of design and safety for total pack. Easier in some regards, right? possibly more benefits in the near term, but higher TCO if you're going to be doing battery replacement and modular replacement and then on the single pack of lower TCO but may maybe limiting truck lifetime overall. OK, next.
Still on batteries here. Expected volumetric and gravimetric penalties. So, basically what sort of pack design considerations could we expect here? We only got a few responses in this area and so we're highlighting a couple here. The density of 600-watt hours per liter was suggested for these types of vehicles. To allow for minimal penalties. And we had another response saying that currently they're estimating cell to pack ratio. So, that's your pack would be only 60% of the energy density of your cells and that you know, there's potential areas for improvement, especially if you got to a purpose built, truck chassis that was meant to be EV. And then any areas that we're not considering in the in the in the RFI. So, this was asking for information, responses on things that we hadn't considered in this particular section. I'll say and so, folks responded with considerations for bi directional power transfer an additional vehicle to grid integration that would not create local power distribution issues. Factors limiting fast charge performance so that could be both on the cell and charging infrastructure areas. The need for standardization of performance for tested safety regulations for batteries, advanced battery mounting strategies sort of talks to the modular cell and pack level considerations that we were mentioning earlier, innovative battery financing models. So, trying to help get around that high initial battery cost for a battery pack and then opportunities for auxiliary power units, presumably on-board meeting power requirements and power takeoff to run truck accessories. So, are there opportunities to use those in medium heavy-duty context. All right, next slide.
So, getting into electric drive technologies, this is so again, following on from batteries right new section here. Considering the different elements of the drive system traction inverter, a traction motor and low voltage converter, including electrified accessories. What do folks think are the greatest barriers and primary R&D needs? We had a very responses here, but price volatility and sustainability rare materials using permanent magnets was cited as a barrier. In addition to some of the improvements that folks are hoping to get efficiency, power density and cost size for power electronics, as well as the high voltage motor overcoming, overcoming thermal limitations and getting the types of torque density is required to drive these trucks. R&D was identified for high energy density, high temperature stability, number of permanent magnet motors. So again, addressing that, you know sort of that barrier that first barrier above the size and weight reduction for high voltage battery packs, to improve system characteristics and tighter integration between the drive electronics and the drive motors. Alright, next slide.
The question being what extent can commercially available off the shelf products be used in current vehicles and then identifying gaps and challenges between currently available off the shelf, what could be done, but the majority of respondents felt that commercially available or commercially off the shelf COTS, wide-bandgap devices and modules may be acceptable for a medium and heavy-duty, but with a few caveats here. Given that long term liability for devices and components have to be demonstrated and accepted by industry, that high voltage busses probably requirement for many of these vehicles and that these sort of available components are useful for prototyping and proof of concept. So, perhaps introductory or low volume medium and heavy-duty vehicles, further R&D, it was again identified developing durable, cost effective high speed machines that would be suitable for integration and immigration, perhaps into rigid axles. So, an axel drive system. What's of interest? Other gaps you mentioned are materials effective thermal management and inverters, operating it for longer, lifetime times, these sort of vehicles and considering the our existing road maps for passenger vehicle Electric drive, are there any activities missing that would be needed for medium and heavy-duty, any targets, requirements that should be at it, or additional technology challenges or gaps that should be addressed. Summary of responses here. Somebody suggesting that medium and heavy-duty vehicles should be further defined for a wider range these types of targets. Multiple responses mention multi speed transmission and powertrain integration challenges. It could be addressed again. Thermal challenges for medium and heavy-duty drive trains that may be different than light-duty, obviously. Targets could benefit from improved metrics such as those that could potentially address vehicle TCO or some of the economies of scale, whether that's modularity or commonization of components. Multiple responses also indicated some standardization could be helpful for attraction drive systems that could benefit long term types of system development. OK, next slide.
The question. All the power, electronics components and systems and voters may require many generations of lab testing and so are modeling tools sufficient? And could they be helpful in reducing design? And so responses, you know said that there are new platforms that effectively could do this type of work improvement in high fidelity tools could lead to a significant reduction and design cycle. Time for electric drive improvements and modeling tools, including electron flow and modeling for electromagnetic interference would be helpful in packaging, design efficiency and that reconfigurable multi physics models purchase to permit change of fidelity and scope for different needs was desired. Yeah, let's move on from that.
A specific question here for regenerative braking when the question that recovering braking energy through electric braking, it's important aspect of electrified transportation or electric trucks are the current technology sufficient to recover or other technologies required so that recoverable energy is not wasted? Multiple responses noted that the peak braking power of heavy-duty vehicles is often greater than the required maximum propulsion power. So that, in other words, perhaps for acceleration, the vehicle and needs so much power. But there's much more power that's available, to be recovered during braking over that that could be required just for vehicle propulsion, normal propulsion. So, I think that's a very interesting point to note it and following on that the efficiency of recovering braking energy, using when the battery pack is full is also interesting concern these types of vehicles. So, better planning and repartition of the braking energy's spreading the power over a longer duration could be helpful to reduce the power levels but maintain the same amount of recoverable energy. And then, obviously you know, underlining that point significantly larger general braking into our power capability than traction capability. So, that's noted there, next one.
For charging systems. This is looking at some of the charging opportunities for these trucks how much downtime the trucks typically have at stops during which they could be charged, we said, if possible, provide vacation class of the truck corresponding to these amounts of downtime. So, there's little table there that, we try to use to summarize some of the responses. Obviously, the amount of downtime will vary with vocation and route of the truck. Vehicles like drayage and refuse can have short time times during shift are perhaps better suited for overnight charging. One respondent noted that 44% of cargo drivers spent two hours or less during unloading again, highlighting the need for some of this, DC fast charging that folks talk about for medium and heavy-duty trucks. OK, next slide.
What charging rates are you considering for electrified trucks? And what information would help determining future decisions to electrify further? Again, a summary of responses here, the majority of them looked at the maximum charging rates for medium and heavy-duty vehicle packs as a constraint. So, 1.5 C capable batteries that would be common for electrified trucks and then beyond that, targeting 3 to 6 C emerging battery technologies could allow for extreme fast chargers that is charging over a megawatt DC fast charging types of vehicles. Current charging rates are identified as varying from 50 to 200. I should be kilowatts kilowatt hours. And useful information for determining future decisions. Considering both drive cycles, sell capabilities and battery system efficiency. Looking at Charger capabilities, charging infrastructure, the return on investment and then cost implications for fleets that could potentially use fast charging. OK, next one.
How was industry envisioning the future of charging infrastructure? Who would or should could own charging infrastructure? Will they leverage, publicly funded or publicly available stations? Will a minimum cluster would be required. And what is the minimum number? You know? Overall, many responders looked at expanding charging infrastructure design along interstate routes that would allow commerce and in route, vehicle charging or during routing charging. This obviously will ultimately depend on the types of battery development we see in the battery chemistries chosen in the vehicle range capabilities. As well as, the particular vehicle application. So again, here's a sort of a variety of responses received of these, you know, potential owners for infrastructure, the types of charging infrastructure that these vehicles could use and then, you know, considerations for a minimum cluster. A corridor of stations that would be able to support an initial rollout of medium and heavy-duty. All right, next slide.
EVSE capabilities are technologies. They're not currently being addressed on the market number one capability needing further attention was bi directional energy flow capability of vehicle charging. So, this would be vehicle to grid or maybe a vehicle to building or vehicle to charging infrastructure. Type of capability further deployment of these that would help enhance grid reliability and service and location. It would probably likely co located to transmission and our feeder lines for the grid. Vehicle charger networks that can delay and modulate charging of vehicles, smart charging or connected charging to minimize the impact on the existing, grid infrastructure. Technology that could help monitor the health condition and security of the charging stations. This would get to getting reliable and trusted charging infrastructure. This is cybersecurity for these charging networks. A few responders suggested further investigation for high voltage that's greater than one kilovolt D C. Fast charging stations to reduce the current levels of, current levels required to support that sort of charging can reduce size, weight and costs of both the power cables and the conductors that are required to deliver that power to the vehicle, produce losses, long cables and conductors because of higher voltage. So, you reduce the losses due to current. And that would also simplify thermal management of connectors. All right, next slide.
Oh, good. OK, so that was that was the end there. Um I'm sorry, everyone, for the issues with being able to hear me, I hope we were able to get through that. And I think now I can try to field some of these some of these questions here. I'm gonna start with, how open are you to battery technologies that will displace lithium batteries as well as all fuels, I think, you know, looking at sort of our road maps for battery energy storage, we have a wide variety of cell chemistries that are currently being considered, you know, incurred, including variations and evolution on lithium-ion lithium metal cells as well as even beyond that to, other chemistries that could be used for on vehicle storage. So, I think we're definitely open to these sort of directions and research pathways. As a follow on to that cost and specific energy level in battery technology. What costs and specific energy level in battery technology would it take to make the industry switch to Battery Electric en masse? I think that's actually similar? To one of the slides we had we had presented there where, there were a few numbers quoted I think the one we had up was 600 watt hours per liter in particular. I mean, I think this is often a difficult one for us to address head on, you know, a battery that's either more energy dense in particular, or maybe even more power dense is always more desirable, right? So what? What can the technology to sustain or what can we achieve in terms of battery energy density that's gonna be most attractive is often the question, or maybe you know what is reasonably achievable over what time period? And, you know, and then when? When does it get to a point where folks are willing to make the switch? You know, we have, current targets that they're getting us, you know, to $100 per kilowatt hour in terms of cost and, you know, for solid state batteries were hoping to get 500-watt hours per kilogram, right? These are pretty aspirational, high risk targets. But those where we think the technology can get us, I'm sort of, you know, over the next few years and cycles. So, that's what we're so we're interested in. But we're definitely will take a much as we can get. Let's see another question here. However, is there a way? OK, turn up the gain of my microphone. I'm sorry, I not sure I can hear that one. Any idea of whether battery costs responses were cell or pack costs? That's a good question. We often, we'll look at both of those in our modeling. We find that the difference is pretty small for again for light-duty. We would normally say that a pack cost is probably going to run your premium them maybe 10% or so. So, I think in the terms of this sort of exercise, when we're talking about that, you know, 100 to $150 per kilowatt hour. It's pretty close, really, but I think, you know, functionally very similar there. We normally would talk in terms of pack costs because that's what folks. That's what folks, are seeing. Another question here. Can you expand on the reference to education in the work on your first slide? Sure, as I recall education was primarily looking at educating fleets and users and trying to fill in those maybe gaps of knowledge they have in terms of what the new technologies they're capable of. Is there a strong focus on doing liquid. Sorry. Another question. That separate question here. Is there a strong focus on doing liquid electrolyte? Or solid electrolyte, we have current research in both of these areas. I wouldn't necessarily I mean, you know, obviously the cell chemistry is gonna dictate what's gonna be required. And so I wouldn't necessarily say that there's a strong, strong focus towards one or the other. I think we see that there's a number of battery and restore solutions that could, that could work, work out well and play out. And so it's. It's about trying to do the research that's necessary to support the types of options that we see is as on the horizon and achievable to meet the technical targets that we have.
Ken Howden:
Steven, this is Ken, there was a question on what are we doing to address wireless charging?
Steven Boyd:
OK, yeah. So, we have a number of different research projects that they're looking at wireless charging and wireless charging systems, including, specifically, actually, for medium and heavy-duty trucks. A lot of the and, you know, we sort of agree with a lot of the benefits where you can have a vehicle charging, that possibly on route and possibly something that is pretty transparent to the owner, where you know, a vehicle or a truck just needs to be positioned in the right spot, whether it's a, you know, a frequent stop like a transit bus, or could be a loading dock for a medium or heavy-duty truck. And so that oftentimes is seen as a real benefit to promote the sort of on route opportunity charging that can extend the operational range of these trucks. So yeah, without, you know, without going started going to project detail, I'll leave it that we see a lot of benefits there, and we're actively working in that space.
Ken Howden:
Steven, this is Ken, another question. Based on section one and two, seems like meeting heavy-duty pickup and delivery type applications are the most right for efficiency improvements. Is it possible to rank applications for overall potential? This is connected and automated vehicles and electrification.
Steven Boyd:
OK, well, sure it's possible to, but I guess it depends on what your preferences are. I'm not gonna I wouldn't try to sit here. I mean, you know, to be direct, right? The idea for this RFI is for us to hear from the community what they think is most important. And so, hopefully in the slides there, it kind of showed the response we got. And, I mean, we understand that there's lots of trucks that are out there for lots of reasons. So, we wanna try to do our best to meet all the you know, all the vehicle requirements as we go down our research pathways for components that can be best used in this truck.
Ken Howden:
OK, Steven. Thank-you. I think we've addressed the questions. I don't see any other ones coming in so thank you very much for going through a lot of detailed responses to those questions. And we will move next to topic area four, which is hydrogen and fuel cell trucking. And this will be presented by Mariya Koleva of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, who is currently on assignment to the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technologies Office. Mariya?
Mariya Koleva:
Thank-you so much. Thank-you, Ken. I would like as well to thank my team members for working with me on summarizing the responses, and for giving me the opportunity, to present those responses to everyone attending today, let me know if you can hear me well, or if you cannot hear me well. In the meantime, so that I could do something about it.
You’re coming through clear.
Mariya Koleva:
To clear?
You're coming through very clearly.
Mariya Koleva:
Awesome. Thank-you so much. So, in the category hydrogen and fuel cell trucking, we received altogether responses from 12 entities from industry, from academia and research organizations. In the summary of the responses that I will present next follow roughly the same format as the presenters before me did. So, if we move to the next slide.
To subcategory 4a, that is, at what vehicle range does hydrogen become a more cost-effective solution than other technology options, such as diesel, biofuel or battery vehicles. Now we received five responses, which were generally in agreement that at the higher mile range, hydrogen will become more competitive. In particular responses varied, from above 150 to 300 miles, with an average of 220 miles across all the responses. Now, the lower bracket represents, transition between the attractiveness of battery electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. This applies to track returning to home base at the end of the day and more so to long haul fuel cell electric vehicles, which do not return to base. This also means that besides the range, the location also determines the vehicle duty cycle. and the latter is considered as one of the two key players for determining the hydrogen cost effectiveness. The second key player is the payload way. So, hydrogen becomes more attractive for large heavy payload that requires additional energy and power but cannot afford to give up freight volume over to batteries. Under current economic and market assumptions, according to the responses that we received, diesel propulsion systems still deliver the lowest total cost of ownership. However, in the longer term, this advantage will shift in favor to battery electric vehicles, and fuel cell electric vehicles. The responses also pointed out, that additional study, additional logistics, such as refueling times infrastructure also become an important consideration depending on the fleet and application. Next, please.
So, the category 4b asked if considering reference truck designs that do not need to meet the 6% grade for 11 miles and continue speed grade requirements of 1.25% at maximum cruising speed for truck modeling purposes are an appropriate requirement for trucks. 4 entities answered this question. Where the common consensus was that the formation considerations may not be appropriate for all vocations. With the recommendation that reference truck designs heavily rely on their application. For instance, for short haul applications 11 miles maybe a longer range than necessary, with maximum 6% uphill gradeability at 20 to 30 MPH. While for other applications, maximum 10% of uphill gradeability at maximum 25 MPH can be considered. For maximum cruising speed 0.5% grade a 65 miles per hour and 1% continuous speed grade instead of the 1.25% requirement were suggested. Additional factors that affect the standards can be payload route congestion and vehicle propulsion architecture. Next slide, please.
Under the Category 4c HFTO was interested in understanding if target combining durability, performance efficiency and cost for membrane electrode assemblies for heavy-duty fuel cell trucks with the specification shown on the slide, it's appropriate and reasonable we received for responses suggesting that targets may not be appropriate as they should allow for the higher for high durability and high-power efficiency goals. An entity suggested 5 kilowatt/g Platinum Group Metals power and higher maximum operating temperatures, while two responses confirmed the metric of 0.3 mg per square centimeter and higher PGM loading targets would allow longer fuel cell life, and durability and better technical and economic efficiency therefore. According to the feedback received, the target of PGM loading was critical for large duty vehicle applications. Regarding fuel cell costs, however, it is no longer total cost of ownership sensitive for medium and heavy-duty applications. As the current state of art of membranes for Large Duty Vehicles is 5000 hours implies that a target of 25,000 hours maybe too high at this stage, ongoing projects in the area of investigating small changes in composition of membranes to improve their durability it’s happening, but it is uncertain that, the modifications for of the membranes will result in a five time increase off the lifetime of membranes. Further revised stoichiometric ratio of 2 for cathodes and 1.5 for the anode, in the high-power region was endorsed. All together to say that final value should be driven by consensus and user requirements. And if we move on to the next slide, thank-you.
This is the category 4d and it asks, are there available data required for optimizing vehicle design around specific use case for a vehicle class, and are their data available to map a distribution of the number of trucks over regional conditions? What other data is needed. We received three responses in this subcategory where the take away revolved around the need of, more reliable data collection and calculation. Having noted that, currently there is limited data gathered by a number of research organizations and associations and here I'm referring to NREL's Fleet DNA. OEMs, CARB, Ports of LA and Truck Association Working Group. Some research has suggested that parcel delivery data roots data does not match the existing literature and open sources data. This comes to show that further reliable data is needed, such as drive and duty cycles, road grade, GPS, vehicle mass, aerodynamics frontal area on drive coefficients, for example, and your ability of current products. This can be used ultimately for the calculation of the total cost of ownership, the residual value, maintenance life, component disposal at the end of the vehicle life would also be very valuable data to be used. Next slide, please.
Under the under the fueling subcategory 4e1 we were interested in the trucks downtime between shifts which can be used for a refueling. Three entities provided some insight on the matter, and we differentiated three major groups depending on the fueling time available that these groups have Those are one, vehicles with ample time for recharging or ability to refuel overnight two vehicles with 10 hour shifts for instance, and the rest of the time, capable of being able to use for refueling and three vehicles that are running 24-hour shifts. 24 hours and have, very little time, here we're talking in the range of minutes, to be able to refuel. So, time between shifts depends on the application, but also in the vehicle class, the location and existing regulations for driving trucks. In the next is sort of a continuation. So, if we move on to 4e2 category on the next slide.
It’s sort of related. So, our trucks commonly fueled at fueling stations in the middle of routes during shifts we received again 3 responses here and in a nutshell, this, one more time, the vehicle application mostly determines, if the natural stop between shifts can be used for refueling or central defaults upon the truck upon the trucks return. So, looking at line haul and both tankers, for instance. So, these are the first bullet. The bullet points, they can refuel between shifts, and these shifts are approximately one hour. So, these natural shifts can be used for their refueling, whereas regional trucks also have natural stops for about one hour. But they can refuel at central depots. So, according to the response received, current form of refueling takes 10 to 15 minutes at approximately 14 gallons per minute for diesel trucks. If we go to 4.e3 which is on the next slide, thank-you so much.
We received only one response for this question. And the question was approximately what percentage of the market requires a fuel time of less than 15 minutes. And the answer was more related to the places that require fueling time less than 15 minutes. And I, these are distribution centers, for example, that run on 24 hour shifts or ports that have limited real estates utilized for refueling or recharging, and cannot have a truck sitting at multiple charging stations so limited by space, and not just shifts.
Moving on to the next subcategory, 4e4. Namely, what fueling pressure will be considered? Is liquid hydrogen considered to be a viable fuel system choice? Which is a very interesting one. And, a lot of a high interest. So, we obtained four responses, which agreed, generally that gaseous hydrogen it's a viable fuel system choice in the near-term future. Or, in other words, that liquid hydrogen poses certain technical and economic challenges, preventing it to be a current system choice, but potentially a good candidate in the future. So, current tank systems current tank systems are seen as a 350-700 bar, in future applications firmly rely on, 700 bar tanks, systems for track applications essentially for light for medium and heavy-duty vehicles. Such pressures, would inevitably provide the capacity needed for extended vehicle ranges that were looking for. Additional hydrogen providers are currently working on codes and standards for medium and heavy-duty 700 bar refueling systems. So, these are the responses that, we got leaning towards 700 bar both tank and refueling systems. So, moving on to the next slide.
With respect to hydrogen infrastructure in how it is envisioned to be owned in future to be funded. How hydrogen stations so are seen in terms of distribution and location on what could be their minimum number. We received five responses which envisioned a number of options. So essentially, there was no single answer here. So first, the stations will be owned by fleets or third party owners, and operators like companies or customer owned, for example. Second, both public funding and private investment are seen as needed in order to grow public and commercial acceptance of the infrastructure, in private investment on its own, to be successful has to be really proven profitable. Now, some suggestions leads to centralized fueling, along driving corridors. Whereas other suggestions point to a minimum cluster stations. But in any case further research was recommended by the entities who provided responses, as to have the best time, followed by review of actual results in each area and operation sphere and with later adjustments for the safe, efficient and economic operations of those stations. The minimum number of stations was pointed out as two. Where one can be located at starting point, and the second one can be located at the endpoint. But this may not be very realistic, more realistic and could be 5 to 10 stations in order to provide ability to test over the long-range roads. Also, one response indicated, indirectly the minimum number of station stations through a number of trucks, which was 10. Also, responses recommended additional study to examine the cost effects based on the location, the number of users, the local state requirements and so on. So, I believe this is the last when I'm moving to our last step, the category, which is 4.e6.
Will, track manufacturers develop their own fuel dispenser technology? What specific bottlenecks in the supply chain would industry be interested in addressing? We received five responses, with the overall message that, efficient economic operations require standardization. So, working with regulators towards developing standards for medium and heavy-duty vehicles for 700 bar refueling will be of utmost importance. The range of the technologies data on the list for development and standardization included, fuel-fill nipples, couplings and pump nozzles. a vehicle-fill interface. Also, plug-in hybrid charging-plug interfaces, high-pressure refill procedures, two way communication as to minimize the cooling requirement, and, additional studies were recommended from the entities who responded to this question, and these all involved consistency, incompatibility of fueling infrastructures, incentivized supply chain to meet projected demand, infrastructure design and implementation, which would also be needed for the early standardization to need growing hydrogen fuel cell demand. Also, reducing hydrogen costs, through protocols or hardware would be advantages. And with that, I would like to thank all of you for, being here for listening. If you have any questions, please use and if not, I’ll hand off to the next panelist, but I do believe, there are a few questions.
So, any recent system project on hold? OK.
Masha? We have two in the chat box, and then the others are down in the Q&A.
Mariya Koleva:
Yes, I can see, there are plenty of them. Let me just see. So, there was there was one that arrived earlier.
That was the hydrogen loss from production to a fueling point.
Yes. Yeah. So, hydrogen loss from production to fueling point. Altogether I am aware that for delivery, gaseous hydrogen. So, it first of all, it depends on the, type of hydrogen as in gaseous form or in a liquid form. Whereas gaseous losses are minimal for delivery and for liquid hydrogen form, I think it's about 1% loss. Now for storage, I believe the story slightly different. I don't want to decide on any numbers. So, it would be best to reach out for our modelers in labs and come back to the individual with the more thorough and, more accurate response.
There is another question on, are there any recent success stories in hydrogen fueling infrastructure for regional haul heavy-duty trucks?
I think in California in general. But again, I, off the top of my head, I cannot come up with anything specific. Maybe my colleague Jason Lee chime in here. And, if he has, specific examples in mind?
Jason Marcinkoski:
I don't have any specific examples of fueling infrastructure just yet. There's a lot of work going on to improve the fill rates right now. So, most of the successes around light-duty and you're right, Masha, the stations in California. So, the heavy-duty that we're targeting requires 8 to 10 kg per minute and is still under development.
Thank-you, Jason. I can read here, so why is it you have so much less optimistic stance towards hydrogen than the European Union and many other countries. That is, I, my personal opinion. This is coming from a number of things, so it very much depends on incentives as well. What the market scenarios are how much European Union is pushing towards it. What demonstration projects are funded. But I do believe we are trying to catch up, as much as possible in and we are also having a lot of analysis that is ongoing, for hydrogen market segmentation and there are there are FOAs coming up, and solicitations that are online. So, I do believe that U.S. is also trying to keep up the pace, but yeah, Jason, if you have anything else to add, please do or to correct me for that last.
Jason Marcinkoski:
Oh, sorry. I think I don't have anything else to add on. I was just looking at the next question? Sorry.
OK, sure. Is there a practical on-board liquid hydrogen storage time That will last for 1000 mile heavy truck trip with a fuel cell and electric drive? As far as I know things may not be yet, practically existent. It may be there may be some. There may be some research going on, but I don't think I don't believe there is any practical application, for such a high range again. Jason, please correct me if I'm wrong.
Jason Marcinkoski:
So yeah, like liquid. Most people are focusing on gaseous storage for trucks at first. I don't know of anyone, focusing on liquid tanks at this time. It's certainly an interesting topic, as we saw from some of the responses. But with all of the momentum of 700-bar refueling the focus is there first plus, we do know that 700 bar refueling will be adequate to provide range, assuming get the higher fuel economy that we're expecting.
Thank-you, Jason.
Masha. We have some other questions in the Q&A box. the slide, fuel cell technology and hydrogen technology. Is there a difference? And if so, what is it? That's a slide 4.a.
Mariya Koleva:
Usually when we talk about hydrogen, we're just talking about the infrastructure and the production of the of the gas or fuel and fuel cell technology, of course, is just referring to a fuel sell stack that produces electricity with the hydrogen. So, that's pretty much the difference. Now you could potentially use hydrogen and an internal combustion engine as well, but we don't focus a lot on that in our program. There is some prior work in that area, but it isn't the focus today.
And another question was roughly what fraction of truck OEMS and operators participated in sections 4 versus fuel cell and hydrogen developers. I think most of them are truck OEMs or users, I’d have to go back and count, but I think predominantly they were truck OEMs or users. Very few fuel cell developers responded.
And there was just another comment that the need for duty cycle data also applies to DVD trucks. Correct?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
OK.
Jason Marcinkoski:
There's so many vocations and use cases for trucks that we need a lot of data. But there's, what I've noticed is a huge limitation in, data with grade and payload. Most of the data doesn't have either. So, there's a lot of work that needs to be done in collecting data to bracket the use cases of various vehicles. Now we have a lot of data, but I think we'll need a lot, we’ll need to fill a lot of gaps as well.
Thank-you, Jason. I do have I do have certain requests here coming, would you mind repeating questions so we'll make sure that we asked a questions more clearly for the next one's coming. So, to what degree has, FedEx or UPS expressed interest in developing the hydrogen fueling network for their fleets, and thank you. I am aware of certain data that they have been collecting, but I am not sure of the interest that they have been expressing. Maybe Jason would know a little bit more about this.
Jason Marcinkoski:
They both have had projects in our program developing fuel cell trucks. I can’t really comment on their specific plans? I think, yeah, let's just leave it at that.
Thank-you, Jason.
I see a few more questions. How do fuel cells in today compare in durability to other types of technology?
OK. So, fuel cells for light-duty, which is more mature, have I've met the 5000 hour targets and have been demonstrated in our technology validation program, which is equivalent to. It's 150,000 miles and in the in the bus sector. We've exceeded 30,000 hours, I recall correctly, but those fuel cells did not necessarily need the, degradation target. They lasted that long, but they didn't meet the degradation target. So you know, that was essentially one technology that we tracked for many, many years to get that data. So, it's actually very old technology, and so that's what kind of becomes a challenge in durability data it takes so long to get actual data and so you could do a lot of accelerated testing as well, to extrapolate. So, we do recognize we have a lot of work to do to prove their durability in trucks, for trucks. Just a relatively new application for us.
OK, two more questions; is 700 bar a foregone conclusion? It seems a 350 bar solution would be beneficial for fleets that own and operate their own private fueling station. Or do you envision a consistent storage pressure is required?
I'm sorry I missed the last part, Ken. Do we envision a ...?
Do you envision that a consistent storage pressure is required?
I’ve seen 700 bar for storage and 700 bar for fueling systems.
So, we've heard from industry that 700 bar is preferred at this point but we don’t set the standards at DOE that would be an industry activity in general, we will work to develop analysis that supports decisions around that, those types of decisions.
OK. And finally, what type of catalysts are focused with fuel cells?
So, this is a little bit outside of my area of expertise. But in general, we're talking about PEM fuel cells, which have predominantly used, platinum group metal catalyst.
And palladium.
Or alloys. However, there are there are efforts in programs to reduce and eliminate catalyst. So, I, Maybe I'd ask that our fuel cell experts can follow up, with whoever asked that question.
OK, that's, I think that's all the questions we have. Masha, thank you very much. I have another one. Is there are max temperature specified for fuel cell operating temperatures?
Generally, depends on the fuel cell type. It depends whether it's a whether it's anode exchange proton exchange or solid oxide. Solid oxide fuel cells can have very high temperatures above 1000 operating. And I believe that TEMs cells or something like a range of 100 to 1200 something like that.
I’ll jump in there a little bit. We try to keep the temperatures fairly low for degradation purposes. So, general, there around 80 C and during hill climbs or excursions, they might reach 90C. But we don't. We don't necessarily. Well, we will look at, the cooling systems required and how they relate to operating temperature. So, there is an inter relationship there. And because of the lower relative operating temperature compared to internal combustion engine, you do have to pay attention, to how much surface area for cooling and it will definitely affect the size of the radiator that you use so that that's something that we're looking at. And then we're also looking at how hybridization strategies can help to reduce your cooling demand.
OK, I think that's all of the questions. Masha, thank-you very much for your presentation.
Thank-you so much. Thank-you, Jason.
Thank-you.
Thank-you.
We'll move now to our last, topic area, which is other important considerations. Last but not least, Mark Smith is our program manager for technology integration in the Vehicle Technologies Office. Mark?
Mark Smith:
Great. Thank-you, Ken. Thanks for everybody. For first off, all of your input, this is really about us really taking the input you provided through the RFI and reporting back out to you. Normally, we would try to do this in person. We all know the circumstances why we're not so thank you for, you know, taking three hours this afternoon to stick with us. That obviously shows your interest in this area as well, and we appreciate that. I see here where I was still over 350 people wanted to hear about other important considerations. So, you all just made my Christmas card list. I do want to thank Mike Laughlin from the Technology Integration team who did a yeoman's job of sorting through a lot of the answers and compiling things. And also hats off to Richard Bogacz and Connie Bezanson from our office for their work and helping to make sure we can pull this off today. So, if you wanna hit the next slide, please, Richard.
So, the other considerations area, we have four questions here. Multiple, you know, kind of two- and three-part questions within some of these. The idea was really to, you know, try to capture maybe some topics that were captured in the previous areas, or possibly even giving respondents an opportunity to expand a bit more. And so, some of what you might hear and see, you may say well jeez, I thought I saw that back in the presentation, on freight operational efficiency or in hydrogen and some of these you may have. But again, it's an opportunity to kind of dive into some of these topics that a bit more deeply. So, the first question we had was the importance of non-powertrain vehicle level efficiency, technology improvements. Again, looking at things like aerodynamics, duty cycle, tire rolling resistance, idling reduction, lightweighting, and a lot of those are pretty similar to what we've done in some of the past Super trucks. But as we see here, we had about 18 responses. And, with exception of a couple, everybody still thought this was somewhat important or highly important. So, if you want to move on, Richard, the next slide will do some of the responses here.
So, technology Areas of importance, aerodynamics active aero, optimized tractor trailer pairing, which is the one that we have another question on towards the end we will touch on a little bit, the effect of lightweighting and the benefits from lightweighting, looking at different materials such as composites that can help with that. Also, looking at vehicle energy management, looking at tire technology again. The rolling resistance tires, real time state of information for tire pressures on both tractor and trailer and the world of automation and connectivity and predictive controls and also electrification of accessories. Realizing that that's becoming of more importance as we look at broader power train electrification, some other operations for non-powertrain technologies was really working at the work truck segment that 80% of the energy is used when the trucks not moving. And that gets into one of the last full slides at the end, which is really understanding, drive cycles and duty cycles and trying to select the best combination of technology or technologies that will help optimized efficiency, given a specific drive cycle or duty cycle. Again, we've heard about driving duty cycles in some of our past readouts as well. Certainly, the work truck part is important because as all of you who are in the work truck world know, you're really dealing with two different duty cycles, right? A drive cycle to get to the job site. And then there's six or eight hours a day that the truck is on that work site. Next slide, please.
Next question, what are the best opportunities and mechanisms to validate, test and integrate advanced technologies in the trucks. And how important is it to demonstrate in real world technologies? 19 responses here we have no responses of five. I think that may have been when we missed, but everybody thought that they were of great importance. And since I'm the program manager and technology integration, and that's really kind of our job is to help do some real-world testing and validation of the great work my other colleagues you just heard from do and their programs that’s music to my ears. Next slide, please, Richard.
So, every everybody agreed that the technology development does require more work beyond just R&D of individual capabilities from individual companies, and maybe some government support is needed to help bridge that gap. To get these technologies out of the research lab and to do some real-world validation and real-world testing. Whether that's the modeling, you can do some proof of concept on those models. Or again, do some, some testing of these new technologies. One of the bottom ones was interesting vehicle demos are better for high-TRL technologies and many technologies in the space are not yet at this level. I think we would say that, Yeah, that's one way to look at it. I think another way to look at it we've heard from some of the OEMs and some of the fleets in the past is we need to maybe to be doing some demonstrations on these vehicles a little bit earlier in the TRL stage, just to really understand how well these technologies may work. And can we really get those efficiencies and improvement that the fleets might be looking for? Next slide, please, Richard.
Further opportunities to validate and test these technologies and trucks was obviously looking at the cost benefit analysis guidelines for soft cost, more specific metrics in DOE tools. We continue to try to work hard in that area, but would certainly support doing more work there as well to provide tools and analysis that's going to help with the decision making for these technologies. Metrics for addressing grid impacts a couple different responses here again understanding that as you look at electrification of the medium heavy-duty sector that looking at distributed energy resource is managed, charging and really trying to understand the impacts on the grid is important to fleets to the utilities to the EBSE providers. So, a long list of stakeholders who have a vested interest in that. We also heard about the ancillary benefits of distributed energy resources. So, again that kind of plays into this, managing the charging and the smart charging capabilities that might exist, providing advanced manufacturing facilities, prototyping, testing and validation. How entrepreneurs and startups can access latest equipment and interact with experts in technical fields. Another area that was touched on we heard about was research and data gathering analysis, to really help identify and validate efficiency improvements for technologies, and we would agree with that as well. Then here was one on hydrogen technologies and PEM that Masha just answered. But again, it was an opportunity for hydrogen to be addressed there. Next one, please.
Some mechanisms to validate and tests and integrate these technologies was federal support for technology integration for technology demonstrations, which we would agree with, support for zero emission commercial vehicles and infrastructure voucher programs, that type of thing. I know there have been some work done at the state level with voucher programs we've not done at the federal level. Detailed drive and duty cycle analysis that topic came up again. And I think that shows the importance of, really everyone understanding, what are these vehicles going to be doing? And how can you maximize the efficiency improvements that you're hoping to gain from using one of these new technologies would be it on the drive train side or if it's an arrow improvement. Looking at virtual design simulation tools that help reduce, iteration cost and time, combine that with real-world testing. Do some of that validation we talked about. Here's another one about lab testing of components and simulated real world conditions and then also jumping from lab testing to large scale field demonstrations to really provide, get data to provide data that will help inform future projects across multiple cases. One was demonstration of material component manufacturing that we would say, is important as well. And then the end user defined technologies and again, testing these technologies in a real-world application and then the education outreach. How do we disseminate these results and replicates the best practices across the fleet and across a wide variety of stakeholders? Next slide, please.
Question 5c. Was collaborations and partnerships needed to occur in order to ensure system wide efficiency gains are met? And what role should trucking fleets playing these collaborations and partnerships? 18 responses. As we were happy to see that these, stakeholders and collaborations are really made up of a wide variety of staples that we work with across the vehicle technologies office, both on the public sector side and the private sector side that includes fleets, fuel providers, state and local governments, vehicle OEMs, engine manufacturers, fueling equipment providers as well as state and local governments. So, I think we would agree that it's critical that we have those relationships and it takes all of those folks that at some point during the process of these technologies being developed and coming to market that play an important role. Next slide, please, Richard.
And here's types on some of these already to some of the different stakeholders and roles that folks thought were important and we would agree with all of these. And I don't think there's any surprises there in terms of the importance of these folks in getting these technologies to market. Next slide, please.
Next slide looked at artificial intelligence. We heard about this in a few of the past presentations. So, what artificial intelligence techniques are currently being used for design and control optimization and with new tools and technologies for AI help with industry challenges. So, we had 12 responses on this. All the respondents said AI tools would help with the challenges. Looked at a number of variants. There was a segment of work that onboard AI machine learning. How do you optimize control strategies? Looking at engine controls to compensate and to mitigate for component aging, Offboard AI was interested in looking at how do we optimize fleet utilization and then looking at mission specific calibrations, that would help set, sent over-the-air to optimize the vehicle for daily duty cycle. And then there was some talk about 5G networks and edge computing to address low latency requirements for transportation. Next slide, please, Richard.
And then again, a lot of interest around AI machine learning, trying to understand you know how data can really help getting large amounts of data and analyzing that to really better understand use cases and duty cycles. We would certainly agree with that input that that is critical when looking at where these technologies, they're gonna provide the biggest paybacks, looking at more high-fidelity simulations to improve some models and to create surrogate models. Looking at how some of AI machine learning can help to enable or accelerate efficient and optimal design studies for complex systems. Doing adaptive digital twins for vehicle and powertrain to maximize technology benefits. Some talk about OBD strategies to factory direct OEM time and resources and to vehicle efficiency increases. And then the last bullet on the slide, I thought was interesting. Warning driver habits for driver feedback and coaching so we can really maximize the technology benefits. And we’ll make the effects of the negative driver habits and something we hear a lot from a lot of the fleet stater colors we work with the importance of driver education that it's not just get in, you know, turn the power on and mash the pedal that you're gonna really, see the benefits of these technologies, driver feedback and coaching is important. Next slide, please.
This is one additional topic that wasn't really associated with a particular question, but it gets into a point that came up earlier, which was really, how do you look at that tractor trailer combination and treat it as a vehicle system? So those components can interact and really benefit as one as one unit. I understand there's some regulatory issues involved there that obviously our friends that that DOT and EPA would have some say in, but we would agree that that, you know, trying to look at the tractor trailer as one vehicle system is critical. Obviously, the real-world challenges are not every fleet owns their trailers. And so, you know, how do you maximize that, that asset when it's, you know doesn't really have a home per se and is, you know, being switched out amongst a wide variety of tractors that that might be moving that across the country. So, that is a quick rundown of the of the other considerations. I see we have a few questions here. Let me get down to this.
Mark, I see, as new technologies emerge for fuels/batteries, do you foresee RR becoming a reduced focus, rolling resistance, becoming a reduced focus for tires and noise sustainable materials being critical performances.
Mark Smith:
You know, we've I know in the SuperTruck program. And Ken, maybe you can comment on some of the past work and rolling resistance tires. You know, I think we understand that again, looking at the vehicle system that all the components play a role. So, I think if there's some lessons learned or some positive impacts there, we would certainly want to learn more about those and get more industry input. We know in some past work we've done with some projects around platooning that tires play a critical role there as well.
OK. Thank-you, Mark. And then we had a question that came in a little bit late on solid oxide asking if we were doing work in solid oxide fuel cells. I know that's not your area Mark.
I’m not gonna even try that one. Yeah if, Masha or Jason is -- I'll let them jump on that one.
The question is, are you doing work in solid oxide fuel cells? We may have to answer that after the presentation here. So, I didn't see anything else, Mark.
Jason Marcinkoski:
Ken, I'm sorry, I was muted.
OK, Jason.
We've done some work on solid oxide fuel cells in the past for auxiliary power units for trucks. We don't have any current work in this area or the primary power plant. But that doesn't mean it can't be considered. I think all options are on the table at this point. There are some challenges with solid oxide fuel cells, and we do, we are doing work in solid oxide electrolysis right now, which is very similar technology, so I wouldn't take it off the table. But right now, I would say, you know, there's more emphasis in the PEM fuel cell area.
OK. Thank-you, Jason. This concludes our five topic areas again I want to thank all of our presenters, and of course, all the people who took the time in the community to submit responses to our questions. And we certainly are going to continue to use these responses for our planning purposes to guide our program in medium and heavy-duty across our three transportation officers, which is hydrogen fuel cells are biofuels and the vehicle technologies. So, those three offices are going to continue to use your responses for planning going into this next year on our three program areas. We're going to post a recording of this webinar and the power point slides at this link. You see here it's the energy.gov website in the EERE area of the website. So, if you go if you go to this area, the power point slides will be up pretty quickly. The recording will probably take a few days to get that transmitted and up on the site and we want to thank everyone who joined us today and especially thank everyone who submitted responses took the time. It takes a lot of time out of your busy schedules to put this effort in, but we really appreciate it. And at this point, I don't know, Dave Howell has any closing comments, Dave?
So, go to the last slide, Richard. I do want to mention that there is a new portal in the EERE Program Information Center. It's called EERE Program Information Center and it’s a new portal to find and respond to opportunities, including funding opportunity announcements, RFIs, a notice of intents, lab calls and notice of technical assistance. So, you see the website here, so please, you know, be cognizant of that. This is the way we're actually, releasing our funding opportunity announcements and things like that going forward. So, it's the EERE program information center and please sign up to receive those notices, just like you have in the past. With that, I do want to thank, everyone, particularly Ken Howden, Connie Bezanson, Richard Bogacz they pulled all this together. Not only this webinar, but the RFI. We've got a really, really great response. I think you see that in the volume of information we got. We still got some digesting to do, and but a lot of the things that you know, are certainly supportive of the work that we're already doing. And then there's some new opportunities and new areas of research that will likely pursue assuming that we have the resources to do so. I also want to thank all the participants for hanging on for this three-hour presentation. If I don't hear from you between now and the holiday break had a wonderful holiday and look forward to working with you and in 2021. So, thank-you all.
Thank-you. And have a good afternoon and good holiday.
Thank-you.
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