The Beginning Of A New Era In Vehicle Propulsion Technology

As part of the schedule of activities arranged for IAA Transportation in Hannover, HVIA’s Chief Technical Officer Adam Ritzinger and Board Director Robert Smedley sought to understand the current ‘state-of-the-art’ in hydrogen fuel cell manufacturing for trucking applications.

That investigation took them to Esslingen in the greater Stuttgart area, one of three production sites managed globally by cellcentric, a truck hydrogen fuel cell system manufacturer and 50:50 joint venture between Daimler Trucks and Volvo Group.

Adam and Rob were expertly hosted by Peter Fagerman, Head of European Production, Joachim Ladra, Head of Sales, Marketing and Communication, and Christian Kleinert, Communication and Marketing Lead.

Over the course of several hours, they jointly discussed fuel cell technology, optimisation, and manufacturing, which are all key topics for cellcentric as they accelerate towards series production of truck hydrogen fuel cell systems.

The visit finished with a full tour of cellcentric’s production facility in Esslingen, which covered an extensive range of new technologies and manufacturing processes, many of which were developed by cellcentric and its partners, and are now covered by patents.

Adam later described the tour as being one of the highlights of his career. “If you’ve ever been to an auto museum, you will have seen historical photos of engineers in the first ever factories to build internal combustion engines at scale”, he added. “That’s what we saw today, for one of the most significant advancements in vehicle propulsion technology since the invention of vehicles themselves…..we literally saw history being made”.

Both Rob and Adam were very encouraged to see cellcentric’s exemplary commitment to innovation, and congratulate both Daimler and Volvo for creating the joint venture.

HVIA would like to offer its sincere thanks to Peter, Joachim, and Christian for arranging and facilitating the tour.

Top image: Adam, Peter, Joachim and Rob (from left) with a current cellcentric fuel cell system BZA150