This fireside chat recap is from FreightWaves’ Net-Zero Carbon Summit on Wednesday.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: The effect of Biden’s climate policy on transportation projects.
DETAILS: EpicWorks Advisors’ Andrew Wishnia discusses how billions of dollars in government spending is helping freight- and pedestrian-centric transportation projects work together to reduce emissions.
KEY QUOTES FROM ANDREW WISHNIA:
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Nikola Corp.’s ability to escape near-death experiences is being tested by shouldering the $61.8 million cost of repairing its fire-prone battery electric trucks. But California’s generous incentives for electric trucks may be a path to survival as the startup’s latest peril plays out.
“California is a state on the cutting edge of technology and has big tailwinds for the transition to zero-emissions trucking with both carrots and sticks from government incentives and regulations,” Nikola CEO...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/is-nikola-counting-too-much-on-california-for-salvation
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As transportation and electrification startups struggle to raise capital, they are increasingly...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/cash-poor-transportation-startups-gambling-for-fresh-capital
Cash-strapped Nikola Corp. is selling its stake in a European joint venture with Iveco Group for $35 million and 20.6 million shares of Nikola stock. It will prioritize hydrogen and fuel cell trucks in North America and phase out battery-electric models except for special orders.
The end of the joint venture, formed in 2019 when CNH Industrial invested $250 million in cash and partial ownership of a plant in Ulm, Germany, far from ends the relationship.
Iveco gets a license to keep developing...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/nikola-cashes-out-european-jv-and-refocuses-on-fuel-cells-at-home
The future of hydrogen as a transportation fuel has numerous hurdles to climb, but one of the most basic is just how it gets used in an engine.
Most of the focus has been on the debate between combustion — using hydrogen in an internal combustion engine engineered for it — or injecting it into an onboard storage tank where it is then fed into a fuel cell. The fuel cell generates electricity and the waste product is water.
Both have environmental issues. Combustion of hydrogen creates problematic...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/amogy-dont-burn-hydrogen-split-ammonia-instead
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Cummins Inc. will spend more than $1 billion to modernize engine plants in three states and invest...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/cummins-plans-1b-investment-in-engine-plants-hydrogen-equipment
The Biden administration will soon issue new tailpipe emissions standards for trucks that most truckers — from single owner-operators to owners of large fleets — warn could place heavy cost burdens onto the U.S. economy as a recession already looms.
As proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in March, the new nitrous oxide (NOx) emissions standards for heavy-duty truck engines will be either a two- or one-step process.
The two-step process, Option 1, would set a stringency increase...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/trucking-braces-for-new-heavy-duty-engine-emission-standards
Making hydrogen today is a pretty dirty business. But that is changing as more companies seek ways to decarbonize the economy.
One increasingly popular approach is applying renewable energy sources to centuries-old electrolysis to split molecules of hydrogen — the most abundant element in the universe — from its bonds with oxygen.
An electrolyzer separates water into oxygen and hydrogen, effectively the opposite of a fuel cell, which uses water and electricity to separate hydrogen and oxygen,...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/whats-behind-the-electrolyzer-craze-for-green-hydrogen
Hyperbole about hydrogen pricing helped convict Nikola Corp. founder Trevor Milton of fraud in federal court. On Thursday, the electric truck maker laid out plans for 60 hydrogen stations by 2026, enabled by a raft of federal and state incentives.
That’s a far cry from the 700 stations at $17 million a station that Nikola outlined in its pitch deck in 2020. It’s unclear how much Nikola will pay per kilogram of production. But it probably will be substantially more than Milton’s claim of sub-$4 a...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/nikola-gets-real-on-hydrogen-with-60-stations-planned-by-2026