India’s largest commercial vehicle maker Tata Motors Ltd is working on three alternatives powered by hydrogen as fuel on the path to net zero hydrogen-based technologies.
The three alternatives are hydrogen combustion through ICE, blended fuel engines with hydrogen and CNG and hydrogen fuel cell technology, according to a presentation made for Investor Day 2024.
The automaker sees huge potential for hydrogen powertrains in serving the medium to heavy-duty range of vehicles on long haulage and intercity applications.
Vehicles running on hydrogen-based technologies are at a very nascent stage in India and companies are still testing the technology.
Commercial vehicle makers are looking at hydrogen-powered trucks, initially hydrogen ICE, for long-haul and heavy-duty segments, considering its potential to provide a better total cost of ownership advantage over diesel engines.
Tata Motors has a joint venture with Cummins Inc, which has started manufacturing hydrogen-powered IC engines for medium and heavy commercial vehicles at their new facility in Jamshedpur.
Last year, the automaker delivered the first hydrogen fuel cell-powered buses to Indian Oil Corp Ltd. The oil marketing company is operating 15 fuel cell buses in the Delhi-NCR region.
According to the investor presentation, heavy trucks and buses for long haulage and intercity applications with high route predictability and high vehicle utilisation have a high potential for the use of hydrogen powertrains.
The government of India has a scheme under the National Green Hydrogen Mission to support the development of technologies to use green hydrogen as a fuel in buses, trucks and four-wheelers, based on fuel cell-based propulsion technology or ICE-based propulsion technology with a budgetary outlay of Rs 496 crore.
The National Green Hydrogen Mission aims to boost the production, utilization and export of green hydrogen with a target of green hydrogen production capacity of at least 5 million metric tonnes per annum by 2030 and 60-100 GW electrolyzer installations.
The government expects vehicles based on green hydrogen to become cost-competitive over the next few years with the falling costs of renewable energy and electrolyzers.
Hydrogen is among other various alternative fuel technologies, such as CNG, LNG, battery electric, ethanol blend and biodiesel, that Tata Motors is working on, amid the changing fuel landscape in the country.