According to Electrek, quoting a German article in Welt, Ram will finally be adopting hydrogen power—and it may not involve Cummins hydrogen engines.
Stellantis reported that they will be expanding to over 100,000 hydrogen-powered delivery vans per year by 2030, with new European vans getting hydrogen power this year. Those vans will be built in Poland. The head of Stellantis’ hydrogen program, Jean-Michel Billig, reportedly told Welt that development in North America would follow shortly after that, including a fuel-cell Ram 5500.
Given that the future of the Ram 4500 and 5500 chassis cabs had not been verified at all until this interview, this is good news for workers at the Saltillo, Mexico plant which makes Ram’s chassis cabs.
A hydrogen fuel cell vehicle would have all the advantages of an electric vehicle—regenerative braking, quiet running, simpler engineering, fewer parts, and so on—but would be refueled as a gasoline car is. Refueling with hydrogen can take as little as five minutes, according to a Cummins demonstration.
Our exclusive take: Cummins may still be a partner in this project, since it has produced fuel cell based Class 8 trucks, but it seems more likely that Peugeot will provide the technology from its own commercial vehicles. Peugeot has a clever and possibly unique design where they can built vans with either hydrogen or battery power for the electric motors.
Hydrogen is currently quite expensive in the United States, but many pilot programs are combining renewable power with electrolysis to increase the supply. Given that many solar and wind projects have to shut down when they provide too much power, and that hydrogen can be produced using the power that would otherwise have been left unproduced, it would seem the missing ingredient is a delivery infrastructure. By the time the Ram system is developed, hydrogen may well cost less than diesel fuel.
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