Not too long ago a hauntingly acquainted headline crossed my display screen: “IKEA introduces first hydrogen vans as a result of ‘battery automobiles would not have the vary to ship to distant areas.’” It had so many frequent signifiers included in so many headlines over the previous few years. A significant agency. An assertion of vary downside. A distinct segment market. And it’ll unfold as all of these items do.
IKEA, after all, is the Swedish flat pack furnishings large that likes to construct enormous shops that make folks lose their sense of route in the event that they stray off the trail, and lose cheap parts of the contents of their wallets in the event that they keep on it. And IKEA doesn’t wish to ship, begging the query about why it has vans.
Actually, IKEA doesn’t wish to ship. Its total enterprise mannequin is nesting folks with automobiles, insufficient time, and possibly not sufficient cash driving to their enormous suburban containers and making an attempt to suit the outcomes by way of doorways, into trunks, and through home windows. It delivers solely as a final resort. And it doesn’t eat the ache or time of assembling its personal furnishings. That it downloads onto its clients as effectively.
However IKEA does, in case you ask properly and a number of instances, fill in varied types and pay them cash, ship flat heavy cardboard containers to buildings inside driving distance of its shops. And it desires its deliveries to be carbon free. In consequence, the corporate sensibly leaned into electrical vans for its supply fleet in Austria — 56 of them.
However IKEA bumped into an issue. Apparently the corporate purchased crappy, short-range electrical vans and haven’t paid consideration to advances in battery expertise, or a minimum of its Austrian arm did. And right here’s the place the story begins to bend oddly.
Austria, regardless of having German as its official language, isn’t a province of Germany, nevertheless it certain is difficult to inform other than one. And German provinces have an uncommon relationship with hydrogen. The whole nation has a large chemical business that loves the stuff and an automotive and trucking business that retains looking for gases to energy their automobiles and vans lengthy after the purpose when it was clear that batteries had been ok for the job.
And in consequence, Germany and its provinces and its not-really-provinces like Austria hold making an attempt to make hydrogen make sense for transportation and vitality. And the meeting retains making an attempt to fake that electrochemistry isn’t advancing battery expertise absurdly quickly. The mix makes for some deeply bizarre decisions.
Because of this confluence of semi-rationality and good intentions, the Austrian arm of IKEA purchased 5 entire hydrogen-powered, sub-7.5 metric ton vans, with ranges of a large 400 kilometers on a single extremely compressed tank of the gasoline.
Wait. 400 kilometers? There are presently electrical automobiles that weigh 2-3 tons which have ranges of effectively over 500 kilometers on a single cost. And the Tesla Semi totally loaded has a confirmed vary of 800 kilometers. What’s with these vans requiring hydrogen to make shorter distances?
Errrr… good query. IKEA purchased crappy short-range, electrical city supply vans from German agency Quantron, vans with a spread of as much as a really mild 170 kilometers. Have you ever ever heard of this agency? I hadn’t, and I do pay some consideration to electrification of transportation. Apparently the agency can’t construct a good electrical truck.
However it might construct gas cell vans, and for no obvious motive has a lock on IKEA’s Austrian division. Quantron is the producer which offered IKEA the 5 gas cell vans, regardless of being incompetent to construct an electrical truck with remotely aggressive vary. Some IKEA supervisor should be associated to the Quantron salesperson, as a result of a 170 km electrical van being thought-about a remotely credible selection in 2023 is difficult to fathom.
The agency has been round in a single kind or one other for about 130 years, beginning out with horse-drawn carriages within the late Eighteen Nineties. It’s by no means been massive, and it nonetheless isn’t, with €23 million in income a few years in the past. Why the heck is IKEA with its world footprint and €41.9 billion in income throwing cash at this tiny agency that may’t construct first rate vary electrical vans, after which doubling down with more cash for gas cell vans? As famous, unhealthy buying choices based mostly on one thing like familial relationships are the one factor that may clarify it.
Let’s have a look at Austria for a minute. Its capital is Vienna, house of the tower with the revolving restaurant and the water park with polished spherical rocks rotating in gyres. And regardless of Strauss, the Danube that flows by way of it isn’t blue, it’s brown or at greatest a considerably poisonous inexperienced. It’s probably the most polluted river in Europe as a rule.
The whole nation is smaller than the comparatively small US state of Maine, about 280 kilometers by slightly below 600 kilometers. Clearly the absurdly low 170 km vary of Quantron’s vans received’t lower it. However, umm, how precisely does the 400 km vary of the gas cell vans make any distinction? Apparently there are a number of IKEA places within the nation, so the place precisely is something out of vary of 170 kilometers of electrical truck?
![Map of Ikea's Austrian locations courtesy Google](https://cleantechnica.com/files/2023/10/Screenshot-2023-10-11-at-10.34.28 PM.png)
Map of IKEA’s Austrian places courtesy Google
Is it that Austria, uniquely amongst European international locations, doesn’t have electrical automobile cost factors with quick DC charging? No. As of 2022, there have been round 22,000 cost factors within the small nation, with lots of them being quick DC charging.
Is it as a result of Quantron doesn’t have quick DC charging on its low-range vans? Sure, that will seem like the case, with limits of 60 kW. Its massive vans, which it most likely strikes three of a 12 months, can help 350 kW, however the stuff it’s peddling to IKEA? Gradual charging.
Is it as a result of there are hydrogen fueling stations in every single place? Properly, no. Based on a website which retains observe of these items, there are solely seven hydrogen refueling stations within the nation, which actually makes me marvel a few logistics automobile’s precise time financial savings in comparison with slower charging.
Is it as a result of hydrogen is magically low cost in Austria? Properly, no. Based on a website which retains observe of these items, Austrian stations are all charging €23.99 (US$34.58) per kilogram proper now. Electrical energy is about €0.24/kWh as the value for households. On an electrons to electrons comparability, it’s simply twice as costly per 100 kilometers. The additional value for drivers who must go a great distance out of their approach as an alternative of simply having the automobiles cost up within the IKEA parking zone in a single day will even burden the price case.
Is it as a result of the gas cell vans shall be lots cheaper than the battery-electric vans? Properly, no. Per the Cambridge College Centre for Sustainable Street Freight in Europe, gas cell vans value 3 times what present inner combustion vans value, whereas battery-electric ones solely value twice as a lot from European OEMs. So along with costing two to 3 instances as a lot to function, they’re dearer to purchase as effectively.
Is it as a result of the OMV wasserstof (hydrogen in German) stations in Austria are filled with glowing inexperienced hydrogen whereas the electrons out of the wall are filthy? No, OMV is an oil and gasoline agency that makes hydrogen from pure gasoline. It’s entered into an settlement to do carbon seize sooner or later, however proper now the hydrogen is black. In the meantime, the nation’s electrical energy is three-quarters from renewables, together with hydro, photo voltaic, and wind. The final coal plant closed in 2020. In the event that they made the hydrogen from inexperienced electrical energy and water, the price per kilometer could be 3 times as a lot, as would the greenhouse gasoline emissions per kilometer.
Is it as a result of the Austrian authorities threw €4.8 million on the challenge? That definitely didn’t damage, however give it some thought. 5 small vans. Nearly one million euros per van from the federal government? What governmental bürokrat thought that was deal?
Bulletins like this one from the Austrian arm of IKEA observe a predictable sample. Somebody within the company working with a vendor who simply desires to make a giant ticket sale makes a foul resolution. They’re supported by companies like OMV whose total enterprise mannequin is collapsing. A vortex of stupidity sucks cash out of the company and into the seller’s and OMV’s pockets. A press launch broadcasts the great information of a brand new hydrogen-for-energy resolution. After working for a few years, the agency realizes that it’s been duped, realizes that battery-electric or grid-tied electrical automobiles from truly competent suppliers are less expensive to purchase, less expensive to function, and have all of the operational traits required for the job. They usually cease shopping for hydrogen automobiles, normally ditch those that they’ve prematurely, and decide to battery- and grid-tied electrical for the long run.
Principally they don’t promote their errors, so hydrogen fan bois and grrls solely see the preliminary announcement, ignore that the agency has 11 instances as many battery-electric automobiles within the first place, and have their deep and abiding biases confirmed. Decrease Saxony (an precise province of Germany, not like Austria, and one which’s north of Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony for some motive) is a uncommon exception, because it truly admitted that it had been sucked into the vortex of stupidity and introduced that wasserstof trains had been a factor of the previous for it.
What is going on globally is what occurred within the southern German province of Baden-Württemberg. Spreadsheet jockeys did the straightforward math above earlier than getting sucked into the vortex of stupidity, realized that the entire value of possession for wasserstof rail was 3 times as excessive, and properly prevented the vortex completely. More often than not that doesn’t get press releases both.
The result’s the looks of lots of hydrogen-for-energy performs going ahead, when in actuality nearly none are, and those that begin spiraling into the vortex determine that out after a few years and quietly abandon the wasserstof ship.
IKEA will determine it out, simply as everybody who goes down this pathway does. It’s exceptional that folks hold making the error when it’s so clearly a mistake with tiny quantities of quantity crunching and the slightest consciousness of battery vitality density enhancements.
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