A Universal Battery-Hydrogen Delivery Truck Out Of London

Tevva, a UK based advanced clean vehicle developer and manufacturer, is launching production of its first 7.5-tonne hydrogen-electric truck. The company headquarters and manufacturing are located in Tilbury near London Thames Freeport. In addition, it opened an office at MIRA Technology Park in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, (West Midlands) to provide the company with access to engineering and testing capabilities for vehicle crash, climatic, dynamics and aerodynamic performance evaluation. Tevva completed arctic winter testing at the start of 2022 and is finishing EU Whole Vehicle Type Approval.

The hydrogen truck development was led by Tevva Founder and CEO, Asher Bennett, who said: “We are excited to launch our hydrogen-electric HGV, creating a landmark moment for Tevva and UK manufacturing. We firmly believe that the post-fossil fuel future, which is quickly approaching, will see a new range of technologies and fuels take central stage in the transport industry.” A former submarine officer in the Israeli NAVY, Asher has firsthand experience of serving on an electric submarine with diesel range extension. This prompted his initial interest in developing a battery dominant delivery vehicle with a diesel backup as a solution to decarbonizing heavier commercial vehicles.

Tevva was formed 9 years ago and delivered 15 trucks with this architecture to UPS in 2019.The experience of developing and operating the UPS trucks has resulted in several key innovations that have advanced the product development of the latest fuel cell truck. The hydrogen-electric truck harnesses fuel flexibility, new technology for the electric motor and an intelligent software that controls the range extender operation to maximize efficiency and distance. Altogether, enabling affordable, emission free transportation.

While the truck is battery electric at its core, with a battery only range of up to 160 miles (108 kWh), adding the hydrogen energy source will almost double the range to 310 miles. The range extender is a 50 kW hydrogen fuel cell provided by Loop Energy. Tevva conducted rigorous testing with four potential fuel cell suppliers before selecting Loop for its overall performance and form factor. While the traditional control of range extenders is based on the battery falling below a certain state of charge, Tevva’s proprietary software predicts the optimal time to use the range extender by factoring in variables like route, weather and vehicle payload. This allows the fuel cell to be run at a constant lower power, which ultimately creates energy and cost efficiency for truck operators.

Dr. Harsh Pershad joined Tevva as Head of Hydrogen earlier this year having previously worked on the UK Government’s Hydrogen Strategy. Harsh believes “Tevva’s hydrogen electric trucks offer the most sustainable, robust and competitive opportunity to decarbonize transport emissions quickly and affordably”. The concept of fuel flexibility pursued by Tevva is that electricity is relatively affordable and will provide majority of the delivery needs, adding hydrogen will afford the fleet operator to send the same truck on longer routes depending on the needs that day. The recharging can be done in 5-6 hours by a standard 22 kW charger, which can be easily arranged overnight, whilst hydrogen fueling can be done in under 20 minutes. Since the use of hydrogen is limited, hydrogen refueling may not be required often and can be done relatively quickly if more driving is required.

The truck is typically equipped with three 350 bar hydrogen tanks. Each Type III-aluminum lined tank can store up to 4.5 kg on board. By opting for 350 bar pressure, the tanks can be refilled with ambient temperature hydrogen, which reduces the cost of the hydrogen refueling infrastructure needed and lowers the operating cost for fleet operators. Public hydrogen stations can be used in the future as well. Tevva is working with several innovative hydrogen suppliers, including Scottish Power, to source low-cost green hydrogen for its customers. Overall, Tevva’s hydrogen strategy can be characterized by a focus on cost rationalization, at the truck level through to the energy refueling infrastructure level.

Another interesting feature of the Tevva design is the electric motor. This is developed in partnership with Advanced Electric Machines (AEM). The vehicle architecture integrates two 75 kW Switch Reluctance Motors (SRM), which provides gains to efficiency, safety and reliability. The SRM design would usually have two more magnetic poles on the stator than the number of poles on the iron core rotor. For example, 6 and 4 or 8 and 6. The rotation is induced by the magnetic field straightening across the poles of the rotor. This in many ways is simpler and offers many advantages over the induction and permanent magnet motors currently in the electric vehicles. Spun out of Newcastle University and located near Sunderland, UK, AEM claims to have overcome vibration and noise, the typical shortcomings of SRM motors, through advances in resolving rotor positioning and corresponding controls. The company expects range gains up to 12% and is proud of using an electric motor that contains no rare earth materials and is fully recyclable at end of life.

Tevva aspires to be a global manufacturer of medium to large-size zero-emission electric trucks by establishing localized production and selling trucks across the world progressing to continental Europe and North America soon. By 2025, Tevva aims to create at least three production facilities with total capacity above 9,000 units per year.