The technology is about hydrogen and internal combustion engines (ICEs), coming together. Its name is H2 HPDI, and its special skills are CO2 (carbon dioxide) reduction, power and torque, TCO (total cost of ownership). “All of them around a magic but real word: higher efficiency,” the company told H2 View ahead of the release.

“If you expected batteries and fuel cells as the only possible alternatives for future long-haul transportation, you have a double choice: either to avoid continuing to read or to get excited about learning more about a solution that appears to perform better than the previous ones.”

Even though the numbers of heavy-duty long haul trucks are small compared to passenger cars, the huge transportation task of tonne/km makes them a big contributor to CO2 emissions.

Westport Fuel Systems Inc., headquartered in Vancouver, has developed a technology that enables heavy-duty trucks to operate on hydrogen: the H2 HPDI (High Pressure Direct Injection) system boasts 20% higher power and torque than the base diesel engine, and 5-10% better thermal efficiency.

Born from the real-life experience with a major OEM, which means several LNG-HPDI powered vehicles on the road, the hydrogen version of the system has been successfully tested both in Westport’s facilities with different OEMs and validated by a joint study with AVL, on the evaluation of the TCO of ICEs fuelled by hydrogen. Now the system is ready to be successful on the road, just as its LNG version has been.