DesignCon attendees can search for a ten a.m. Wednesday, January 31 keynote presentation by Nikola’s world head of product improvement, the place Pedro Garcia will describe his ideas on sustainable heavy-duty, zero-emission, business automobiles.
He’ll focus on the challenges Nikola has confronted in growing its Class 8 hydrogen gasoline cell electrical vans for business over-the-highway use. Battery vitality storage has proved to be impractical for such long-distance functions, so Garcia will tackle questions in regards to the Nikola truck’s use of gasoline cells utilizing compressed hydrogen fuel gasoline.
Nikola’s world head of product improvement, Pedro Garcia. NIKOLA
“We’ll speak about what Nikola brings to the desk to this area, not solely the automobiles however on the hydrogen aspect as properly,” he defined in a preview dialogue. Nikola chosen Bosch gasoline cells to energy its vans. These cells have been optimized for heavy-duty functions, which is a pivot from the unique trade expectations that gasoline cells could be used for passenger automobiles.
“We’ve been in improvement with Bosch for fairly a while, and being able to affect these necessities early was very advantageous for us,” Garcia stated. The vans want gasoline cells producing between 150 kilowatts and 200 kW, somewhat than the 60 kW that will be typical for passenger automobiles.
Moreover, heavy truck operators have a special expectation for product life than passenger automotive house owners do, Garcia identified. “You’d count on sturdiness of about 200,000 miles for a passenger automotive, however a truck operator expects it to be worthwhile for 750,000 miles,” he stated.
Nikola’s problem has been to combine the Bosch gasoline cells into the truck’s many different techniques, based on Garcia. “That’s the factor that excites me essentially the most, doing the mixing,” he stated. One key difficulty is thermal administration. “With a 200kW system you’re producing fairly a bit of warmth that must be rejected, so packaging the thermal techniques was a problem.”
“Anyone can put collectively a car that operates at 25 levels C., however we examined in excessive situations,” Garcia stated. Nikola does chilly climate testing on Michigan’s higher peninsula. The corporate is predicated in Arizona, so it does its hot-weather testing from its headquarters.
Hydrogen storage is at all times an space of concern, and Garcia says that Nikola has packed considerable capability into its vans. “We now have cutting-edge onboard storage,” he stated. “We now have the very best quantity of hydrogen, with 70 kg onboard in 5 700-bar tanks that meet all the protection requirements for crash and leak detection.”
The truck’s effectivity of seven.5 miles per kilogram. Yields a driving vary of 525 miles, with refills taking 20 minutes. The storage tanks are supplied by Hexagon Purus, coming from the corporate’s Westminster, Md. plant that has the capability to construct 10,000 such tanks a yr.
Contained in the cab, Nikola can be optimizing techniques for max efficiency. Meaning predictive software program integration monitoring street situations to reduce drive occasions. “Having this software program integration in home was a blessing for us,” Garcia stated. “It gave us the flexibility to carry the driving force interface to the subsequent stage to simply talk with the car. The primary factor that sticks with me is the smile on the face of the drivers,” he concluded.
Go to the DesignCon keynote for added particulars.
