Delphi Closing in on Fuel Cells for Heavy-Duty Trucks

By Peter Iglinski

Brighton, NY – Delphi Corporation hopes to start producing fuel cells for heavy-duty trucks in about two years. It would have many of the same benefits as the fuel cells that are being developed for cars. But as WXXI's Peter Iglinski tells us, the Delphi fuel cell has nothing to do with moving trucks down the highway.

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The Waterloo truck stop, just off the New York State Thruway, is where drivers go to get fuel, find something to eat, or get some rest.

"OK, I'm Pierre Dellaire. I'm a trucker and I'm based in Fredericton, New Brunswick and I live in Rockland, Ontario."

Dellaire is on the road six to eight days at a time. He spends a lot of that time behind the wheel--ten to eleven hours-a-day. But he's also required to take long breaks. In New York, truck drivers need to have daily rest periods of at least ten hours. For Dellaire, his rig is more than a truck.

"It's my house. The back of the truck is my house."

In the back of the cab--behind the driver's seat--is a living area, complete with a bed, refrigerator, storage space, and other cramped amenities.

"Well, I eat, I sleep. I have hobbies; I read. Some have TVs, VCR, and all kinds, depending on what you want to do."

In the past, truckers would just let their engines idle during rest periods to get the heat and electricity they needed. But recent laws prohibit truck drivers from prolonged idling. In New York, a law adopted in 2002 prevents heavy-duty trucks from idling more than five minutes under normal circumstances. That's led to alternative methods of providing electricity for "hotel loads"--the things that keep drivers comfortable during rest periods. Some rest stops make power and heating connections available. Dellaire uses a diesel fuel-powered generator. But other options are in the works.

Steve Shaffer is the Chief Engineer at Delphi's fuel cell development facility in Brighton. He's been there more than ten-years working on a solid oxide fuel cell. Delphi's fuel cell differs from the one being developed by General Motors in Honeoye Falls. GM's fuel cell actually moves the car, and uses hydrogen as a fuel. Shaffer says Delphi's work is focused on a small power unit.

"Because of the temperature that our technology runs at, which is 750 degrees C, it takes us a period of time to get the unit up to that temperature. So we don't have instant-start...For an auxiliary power unit, that's not required, but for an automotive application--where you're providing the energy for propulsion of the vehicle, you do need instant power."

The solid oxide fuel cell is considered a more efficient way of providing electricity. It's also more environmentally-friendly--it produces water and a smaller amount of CO2 as byproducts.

Shaffer says the big benefit of Delphi's fuel cell is that it can use fuels that are available today.

"So we can actually take diesel fuel or natural gas or gasoline and run it through a very simple reforming process and make hydrogen and CO. And our fuel cell uses both of those as fuel--both hydrogen and CO."

Not only is the fuel available, it's already on the truck--in the form of diesel.

Delphi does have prototypes of the solid oxide fuel cell. But the company is not quite ready for mass production. Shaffer says Delphi needs to find a way to develop the fuel cell at high-volume and at a competitive cost.

"We've been working on it for now close to ten years and, so, you can imagine that it's a pretty good investment. But when we look at the potential market out there, we believe that's a good investment to make."

Delphi, for obvious competitive reasons, doesn't go into a lot of specifics about its research. Shaffer will only say that "hundreds" of people are involved in the research. And Delphi won't talk about the cost.

"The other one is validating that the technology will live in the environment that we're trying to apply it to...Our history is transportation, so we understand what it takes to validate a part or a product so that it will live in this environment and not have failures."

It's hard estimating how many trucks are on the road today. But Shaffer estimates that 300,000 heavy-duty trucks are sold each year in the US--and that a third of them have sleeper cabs. But the market may go beyond that. Delphi is looking at other uses for the solid oxide fuel cell, specifically homes and buildings. If it's hard to say how many trucks are operating in the US, don't even try doing that for buildings.

Delphi plans to start commercial production of the solid oxide fuel cells in a little more than two-years. No decision has been made on where the fuel cells will be produced. But Shaffer expects the local research facility to grow--and that means more good-paying, high-tech jobs for the region. It also means Pierre Dellaire and other drivers will have options for how to power their heaters, refrigerators and TVs during their rest periods.

I'm Peter Iglinski, WXXI News.