For heavy-duty trucks, which alternative energy carrier between an electric battery and hydrogen leads to a better environmental performance, from a Well-to-Wheels perspective and in the Belgian context?

In 2019, the heavy-duty vehicles in Europe were responsible for about a quarter of road transport CO2 emissions and represented 6% of total European CO2 emissions. Heavy-duty vehicles play a critical role in the supply chain of organisations, by delivering all types of goods from the production points to the manufacturing sites and to their final selling point. To reduce the environmental impact of supply chains, all emission reduction levers need to be activated. An impactful reduction lever is the use of alternative fuels and powertrains for heavy-duty vehicles. Battery electric trucks and hydrogen fuel cell electric trucks are the most promising alternatives until now. Therefore, this paper evaluates the environmental performance, in terms of “energy efficiency” and “greenhouse gas emissions”, for battery electric trucks and hydrogen fuel cell electric trucks. Both are being compared to conventional diesel trucks, to assess their potential to deeply reduce emissions. The study investigates several production pathways for each fuel. The environmental performance is based on a Well-to-Wheels analysis.