As a truck fleet, you are likely grappling with the fate of the diesel engine, dominant in trucks for over 100 years. Alternative fuels have challenged diesel, but none have bested it. The most recent contender, hydrogen, is both interesting and mysterious. In this guide, Hydrogen Powered Trucks 2025, you will discover that hydrogen is a unique and versatile gas, offering great potential despite certain challenges. We explore the technical aspects of hydrogen power trains, hydrogen fueling, the state of commercial rollout and ways fleets might begin to deploy hydrogen trucks.
Across the United States, there are pockets of significant interest in hydrogen as a transportation fuel, notably California, Texas, and the Pacific Northwest extending into Canada, driven by energy security, corporate sustainability and/or the need to reduce local air pollution.
Hydrogen is recognized by engine manufacturers and truck OEMs as a preferred decarbonization option due to diesel-like truck refueling, range, and cargo capacity and its versatility, either as a bridge fuel -burned in internal combustion engines- or as an electromotive drivetrain energy source. However, hydrogen fueled trucking recently moved from R&D, into an early-commercial Class 8 truck market. Commercial demonstration projects are needed to enable market pull. These demonstrations will require vertical deployment of hydrogen fueling and trucks in an iterative fashion to de-risk this early market and set it up for growth.
Despite tremendous momentum to create hydrogen corridors, the early hydrogen truck market has not yet fully emerged. Given these factors, Hydrogen Powered Trucks 2025 is offered as a primer to arm Class 8 truck fleets with the minimum knowledge to be conversant around the topic of hydrogen fuel and its use in trucking, noting that much of this information is applicable to hydrogen fueled vehicles of all classes.
In trucking and heavy freight, recognition of a need for corporate environmental stewardship creates pressure to proactively adopt sustainability best practices, with a move to zero-emission vehicles (ZEV). In some cases, the actions of individual corporations are ahead of public policy and regulation. Corporations like Ikea, DHL, Sysco, Maersk and PepsiCo are testing business models for decarbonizing their freight logistics.
This increased activity in sustainability best practice exerts pressure on the supply chain to reduce carbon dioxide air pollution (commonly referred to as “carbon”). Truck OEMs are taking note and investing heavily into hydrogen as a transportation fuel because of its potential to meet these needs. Now the federal government and regions across the country are implementing policy that create the market conditions for hydrogen’s success. California, Oregon, Washington, Texas are states taking a regional approach to hydrogen market creation.
Layered on this are the national standards to reduce air pollution and improve conditions in and around cities. These federal air pollution improvement requirements are tied to federal highway funding.
Congress implemented two major tools that is stimulating the hydrogen marketplace. In 2021, through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, $8 billion was earmarked by US DOE to stimulate the development of seven clean hydrogen production hubs. Additionally, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, includes energy- and climate-related provisions, which will influence energy consumption, production and trade in the US which will directly and indirectly benefit trucking and hydrogen.