Daimler Truck AG and TotalEnergies today have signed an agreement on their joint commitment to the de-carbonization of the road freight in the European Union. The partners will collaborate in the development of ecosystems for heavy-duty trucks running on hydrogen, with the intent to demonstrate the attractiveness and effectiveness of trucking powered by clean hydrogen and the ambition to play a lead role in kickstarting the rollout of hydrogen infrastructure for transportation.
The collaboration includes hydrogen sourcing and logistics, dispensing of hydrogen in service stations, development of hydrogen-based trucks, establishment of a customer base as well as other areas. In particular, TotalEnergies has the ambition by 2030 to operate directly or indirectly up to 150 hydrogen refuelling stations in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg and France. As part of the collaboration, Daimler Truck is also to supply hydrogen-powered fuel-cell trucks to its customers in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg and France by 2025. The truck manufacturer will support its customers to ensure easy operability and highly competitive uptime.
Karin Rådström, CEO of Mercedes-Benz Trucks and Member of the Board of Management at Daimler Truck, said, “We are fully committed to the Paris Climate Agreement, and we want to actively contribute to the decarbonization of road freight transport in the European Union. Regarding the long-haul freight segment, we are convinced that CO2-neutral transportation will be enabled in the future by hydrogen-powered fuel cell trucks as well as purely battery-powered trucks. In order to make this possible, we want to establish a pan-European hydrogen ecosystem together with strong partners such as TotalEnergies. I am fully convinced that this collaboration will play a key role in our intensified activities on the road toward hydrogen-powered trucking.”
Alexis Vovk, President Marketing & Services and member of the TotalEnergies Executive Committee: “Hydrogen will have its role in TotalEnergies’ journey to decarbonise mobility, especially in European long-haul transportation. Our company is actively exploring all aspects of the value chain of Hydrogen for mobility, from production to supply and distribution, and is building important partnerships to this effect. We want to build a multi-energies company with the ambition to get to Net Zero by 2050, together with society. Therefore, the creation of a European network of H2 truck stations for mobility is one of the key challenges we intend to tackle. We are proud to partner with a motivated player like Daimler Truck to develop CO2-neutral truck mobility through a harmonised approach.” In order to develop these projects and to establish hydrogen-based transportation as a viable option, both companies want to jointly investigate the means of reducing the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of hydrogen truck operations, in line with their common approach to work together with authorities on the regulatory framework in the European Union. Daimler Truck and TotalEnergies are both members of the H2Accelerate consortium. The two companies remain fully committed to working with the consortium, a key vehicle to support the rollout of hydrogen-powered transport in Europe in the coming decade.