French Post Office and Renault Trucks testing electric truck with fuel cell range extender

(Before It's News)

Renault Trucks and the French Post Office (La Poste) will introduce on an experimental basis, and as a first in Europe, an electric truck equipped with a hydrogen-powered range extender. The range-extended 4.5-ton Maxity Electric model doubles th electric truck range to 200 kilometers (124 miles) and will be tested for one year under actual operating conditions in the city Dole (Jura Department), allowing Renault Trucks to explore all potential avenues of hydrogen technology under actual operating conditions.

For La Poste, which at present owns the world’s largest fleet of electric vehicles, this experiment is part of a continuous effort underway to extend the range of its fleet. For nearly a year, in the Franche-Comté Region, the Post Office has been testing, during carriers’ collection and distribution of mail and packages, Renault Kangoo Z.E. mail delivery vehicles with fuel cell range extenders.

Renault Trucks configured the 4.5-ton Maxity Electric with a 20 kW hydrogen fuel cell, along with two hydrogen tanks, with a 75-liter capacity each, making it possible to store 4 kg of H₂ at 350 bar. The development and vehicle integration steps were carried out in partnership with Symbio FCell.

When the vehicle is running, the electric motor is fed by two complementary energy sources; the fuel cell is capable of delivering a maximum power of 20 kW and, once that threshold has been reached, the batteries kick in to supply whatever power is still required. When idle, the fuel cell is available to recharge the battery as needed, said Christophe Vacquier, project supervisor.

The heat released by the fuel cell is reused to warm the passenger compartment, which avoids having to consume any energy stored in the batteries, thus helping ensure longer range.

Due to the region’s especially harsh winter weather conditions, Dole will serve as the backdrop for the Post Office’s entire experimental fleet.

The truck, registered under the N2 category, has a authorized gross weight of 4.5 tons, certified in France at 3.5 tons + 1 ton, via special regulations favoring “clean-burning vehicles” ; the extra 1,000 kg has been authorized as a declared additional rated weight, owing to the deployment of a “clean” alternative technology.

The truck is driven by a 400V, 47 kW asynchronous electric motors with 270 N·m (199 lb-ft) of torque; maximum speed is 90 km/h (56 mph). The truck is equipped with four Valence Technology Li-ion battery packs, weighing a total of 400 kg (882 lbs) and providing 42 kWh capacity.

The vehicle will be used on a mail and package collection route, which is mainly rural and covers a distance of approximately 70 km (43.5 miles).

• Both Roads Taken [Uncertain Principles]
• Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell drivers in SoCal accumulate more than 238,900 miles
• Strategically Planning for Law-Firm Success and Growth
• Stone tool unearthed in Oregon may date back 15,800 years or more
• Scant Evidence that Prehistoric People were Warlike, Anthropologist claims
• Hillary Clinton’s Possibly Fatal Email Mistake
• The Huawei Watch will cost $1000, according to premature Amazon posting
• Dual Stimuli Polysaccharide Nanovesicles for Conjugated and Physically Loaded Doxorubicin Delivery in Breast Cancer Cells
• Yum, Yum! Spiders for Dinner
• Simultaneous effects of surface spins: rarely large coercivity, high remanence magnetization and jumps in the hysteresis loops observed in CoFe2O4 nanoparticles