[AZGolf]

Truck stops. When you've got a bigass trailer it's a PITA and/or impossible to get into most regular gas stations anyway.

These aren't class 4 and up vehicles for commercial users though. Class 2b/3 are for regular people who like the security of a higher tow rating whenever they are taking their boat to the lake or their camper out to the woods. If the hydrogen is only at truck stops, it means that every week or two people are going to have to drive out of town to a truck stop to fuel up, then drive back home. That doesn't make sense.

Though I suppose if every truck above 2a (F-150 / Silverado/Ram 1500) is hydrogen only and they only sell hydrogen at truck stops, that would mean a lot fewer brodozers in suburbia. Perhaps this really is something I can get behind after all.

 

[AZGolf]

California is practically mandating hydrogen via their zero-emission vehicle program changes since pure BEVs are impractical for large trucks and large fleets alike.

The CARB regulation specifically exempts all vehicles GVWR 8501 and up. That's the 250 / 2500 series trucks and up. There is no zero-emission mandate on vehicles in that weight class.

 

[AZGolf]

In 2010 when the federal government mandated DEF, we went from 0 DEF pumps to almost all truck stops having DEF pumps within 5 years. And it's not simple infrastructure - the DEF storage tanks, often up to 4,000 gallons, must be stainless steel and the fluid must be kept heated while in storage.

It's the same argument EV proponents use - the infrastructure will get there. And they're right - regardless of your choice of motive power, the infrastructure to support it will come online if we need it.

That's the storage and pumps, not the production or distribution problem.

 

[AZGolf]

I meant the CARB Advanced Clean Trucks program, which does require ZEV medium and heavy duty truck sales from 2024 onward.

Interesting - this is the first I've heard of it, but then again I'm not in California so I'm not usually looking out for everything CARB does. Looks aggressive, but no where nearly as aggressive as the LDV regulation:

Zero-emission truck sales: Manufacturers who certify Class 2b-8 chassis or complete vehicles with combustion engines would be required to sell zero-emission trucks as an increasing percentage of their annual California sales from 2024 to 2035. By 2035, zero-emission truck/chassis sales would need to be 55% of Class 2b – 3 truck sales, 75% of Class 4 – 8 straight truck sales, and 40% of truck tractor sales.

 

[AZGolf]

We haven't even banned leaded gas for airplanes, so any talk of banning gasoline/diesel for road vehicles before it's obsolete is absurd.

 

[AZGolf]

The biggest scam on the face of the earth is that there are no PHEV trucks

Just wait a little while. CARB's mandate is for no more than 20% of vehicles sold in 2035 to be PHEVs with 50 miles of range. It's a phased approach, so we'll see automakers starting to release their first generation California PHEV compliance vehicles in the coming years. It's happening, we're just not there yet.

 

[AZGolf]

is this a new thing to be angry about? because I tend to think that all developped countries should start to standardise literally everything from food safety to the metric system.

Standards are one thing. To others, globalism is a reference to relying on every country on Earth to get anything done. We're still suffering with fallout from the March 2020 lockdowns and its impact on global supply chains to this day. There is a strong argument to be made for regionalism instead of globalism, where there's financial penalties for trade going outside of regions. That will create an incentive for international corporations to create factories in each region rather than, for example, Apple building nearly all the cell phones for the whole planet in a pair of cities in China, and using parts from 146 different countries.

How that ties in to hydrogen Super Duties? I guess fossil fuels. The direction of CanUSMex and Eurozone energy policy should be using locally sourced energy as much as possible. Regardless if it's renewable or not, each should each be seeking to avoid importing energy from outside their region in the name of military and economic security. Hydrogen can be locally produced though it relies on either vast natural gas reserves (problematic) or a significant surplus of electricity, which is at least possible given enough time to build that generation infrastructure.

 

[AZGolf]

You’ve never heard of renewables like wind, solar, hydro? There’s also nuclear if you trust your government’s ability to keep nuclear facilities secure, including hazardous waste disposal.

Industrial scale hydrogen comes from natural gas though, not renewable energy.

 

[AZGolf]

It mostly comes from RNG, which is renewable.

 

[AZGolf]

Hence my earlier suggestion... BEV with a fuel cell range-extender.

That's already what all fuel cell cars are, they just have small batteries. So in other words you just want the battery of fuel cell cars to be bigger - kind of like an electric car. In fact if you make the battery big enough you'll never have to fuel up with hydrogen at all, which would solve the hydrogen fueling infrastructure problem.