Faurecia of France recently signed an important contract with Hyundai Motor for storage systems for fuel cell electric vehicles. Faurecia will supply the entire hydrogen storage system for modern heavy trucks. The 10,000 composite hydrogen storage tanks to be delivered will be produced at its global center of excellence in Bavans, France.
The delivery of composite hydrogen storage tanks will begin in 2021 and will be gradually equipped on about 1,600 modern heavy trucks over the next four years. These trucks will be delivered to Hyundai Hydrogen Mobility, which is headquartered in Switzerland Zurich is a newly established joint venture between Hyundai and H2 Energy, mainly active in Europe.
"Fuel cell electric vehicle technology will play an important role in powertrain systems in the next 10 to 15 years, especially for commercial vehicles." Faurecia CEO Patrick Koller said, "Faurecia is investing a lot of resources To optimize the potential of this technology and create a first-class ecosystem to accelerate its deployment. "
Lighter and more cost-effective composite hydrogen storage system
Faurecia obtained the exclusive right to use the intellectual property rights and process knowledge of composite material hydrogen storage tanks from STELIA Aerospace Composites in 2017. With this support, Faurecia has been able to design, industrialize, and commercialize high-pressure hydrogen storage tanks made of carbon fiber composite materials for fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV).
According to the March 2018 press release of STELIA Aerospace Composites, it specifically helped Faurecia develop a lightweight and cost-effective 700bar hydrogen storage tank. Nils Walther, global project manager of Faurecia ’s zero-emission fuel cell division, said that the company ’s pilot production line in France has been put into operation, and the goal is to achieve a 15-20% weight reduction, making it use less carbon fiber, lower raw material costs, and shorter winding process time. , While providing a larger interior volume to achieve a longer driving distance.
Faurecia CTO Christophe Aufrère explained the company's hydrogen energy strategy: "We want to accelerate the development of hydrogen energy technology in different ways. The first is a huge investment of about 15-20 million euros in R & D and test production . The second is that we want to halve the price of the main components and achieve 80% of the value chain. Third, we also hope that the technology will be deployed on a large scale in industrialization. "
Global Center of Excellence
In June 2019, Faurecia announced the establishment of a global hydrogen energy storage system expertise center at the R & D center in Bavans, France. The center is scheduled to start operations in the second quarter of 2020, with a total investment of approximately 25 million euros. Faurecia plans to increase the number of employees in the center to 750.
Fuel cell electric vehicles are an attractive and complementary alternative to pure battery electric vehicles. The range and refueling time of fuel cell trucks are similar to diesel trucks and are completely emission-free. Faurecia estimates that by 2030 at least 2 million new vehicles and more than 350,000 commercial vehicles will be equipped with fuel cell technology.