So far, the Tatra Force e-Drive hydrogen prototype has served mainly as a show car, but it will soon be deployed in a test run. And to keep the colossus working, it has been given a special mobile filling station. It was first shown in Jablonec nad Nisou.
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At first glance, the filling station looks more like a building cell. Among other things because it is located on a standardised container platform. Without it, however, the hydrogen Tatra prototype would hardly succeed in operation. Kopřivnice's ambition is to have a similar car on regular roads, but probably not until the end of the decade.
The mobile filling station, which was built according to the requirements of the Kopřivnice brand by the Jablonec company Devinn, which also cooperated in the development of the hydrogen Tatra, is not just a functional prototype. It was presented for the first time at the Tech Days event, where Devinn presents its work.
Theoretically, it could also be produced for other interested parties, but it would be built to order. "The price is generally around CZK 20 to 40 million," says Josef Lexa, the developer of the Jablonec company. According to him, the construction of a bottling plant takes about a year, but this particular one was built a little faster.
"Because the filling station will be more or less stationary, Tatra did not address its weight. That's why the bundles where the hydrogen is stored are steel," Lexa continues. The use of composite bundles was also proposed, but this would have significantly increased the price of the entire filler. It weighs about 16.5 tonnes, with four steel bundles, each of which can hold 25 kilograms of hydrogen at a temperature of 20 degrees. Altogether, the filler has a capacity of 100 kg of hydrogen at 500 bar.
"A single steel bundle weighs about 2.7 tonnes," explains Jakub Svatý, who develops hydrogen devices at Devinn." The composite bundle weighs only about 650 kilograms," he adds. However, it can hold "only" 14 kg of hydrogen, so a mobile filling station would need seven of them for a comparable capacity. Even so, installing lighter bundles would save more than six tonnes. But this is more for illustrative purposes.
The current mobile station can fill hydrogen at 350bar, which is enough for a truck. However, according to the representatives of the Jablonec company, it would not be a problem to produce a filling station working under 700 bar pressure and therefore suitable for passenger cars. The Tatra Force e-Drive hydrogen prototype has a total of six tanks for a total of 30 kilos of hydrogen, which the mobile filling station can refill in about half an hour.
In April, the prototype was still more of a showcar and had a few hundred kilometres on the clock. But that is about to change. "In the next few weeks, it will be put into live operation in a surface mine," revealed the designer PetrJeniš. This is exactly what it is suited for, as the hydrogen tug is a three-sided tipper with a payload of 22 tonnes. The operating weight with the superstructure is the same.
The chassis is based on the classic Tatra concept, i.e. a central support tube. The first three axles are driven by a synchronous electric motor with a continuous output of 480 kW (the maximum output is even 100 kW higher) and a torque of 2300 Nm. The last one is rotary for a change.
In addition, the car has two fuel cells from the renowned Ballard company, each with an output of 100 kW. These are followed by a traction battery with a capacity of 171 kWh, which is recharged by the fuel cells. The range with full hydrogen cylinders is around 400 to 500 kilometres.
The battery inside the car can also be charged externally, so the prototype can also be used as a regular electric car. But then it unnecessarily carries several tons of load. At the same time, Tatra is already slowly preparing an exclusively battery-powered prototype truck, which is still in a very early stage of development. Earlier, the carmaker also said it was working on a car with a petrol range extender and a parallel hybrid.
Representatives of Devinn indicated during the presentation that Kopřivnice is also already thinking about a second hydrogen prototype that would correct some of the shortcomings of the current one. What are they? "Nowadays, if we were to build this hydrogen prototype again, we know that we would get to a much smaller size with the built-up space behind the cabin, I dare say at least two-thirds. We could also use a more powerful powertrain or a different battery," Jakub Pončík, director of research and development at Tatra, told Aktuálně.cz in April.
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