With the development of the PH2P hydrogen fuel cell truck, the Paul Group has delivered the first 25 such trucks from series production in Germany since the beginning of 2024.
Oil company Shell’s Hydrogen Pay-Per-Use model will be used for these trucks. Launched in August 2023, Hydrogen Pay-Per-Use is an affordable way for the heavy-duty mobility sector to explore hydrogen as a fuel. Customers get exclusive use of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) for a monthly fee.
Shell received the registered vehicles from the Paul Group and will lease them via the Pay-Per-Use platform, including after-sales service and support for the hydrogen refueling infrastructure. For customers, this covers all necessary services during the period of use.
The PH2P hydrogen truck has a permissible gross vehicle weight of 16 tonnes and offers a gross combination weight of up to 24 tonnes, with a range of around 450 km. Pure water vapor comes out of the exhaust.
Besides the logistics company DHL, the companies that are already using the PH2P truck include building materials manufacturer and construction service provider Bachl, food wholesaler Troiber and the logistics company Emde for the clothing company C&A.
“We are proud to have delivered all ordered vehicles to Shell in accordance with the contract within the short development and production time,” says Bernhard Wasner, CEO of the Paul Group. “From now on, we will be able to offer immediate delivery capability from the series production of the PH2P truck and thus serve companies in particular that already have funding notices for vehicles with alternative drive systems.”
While Troiber, based in Hofkirchen, Bavaria, sends the trucks overland on largely mountainous terrain, DHL operates in the rather flat North Rhine-Westphalia region. The zero-emission PH2P trucks therefore prove themselves with very different driving profiles as well as in different areas of application, which illustrates their versatility and the performance of this technology.
DHL Group’s DHL Freight and Post & Parcel Germany divisions have commissioned two PH2P trucks in Cologne to test the hydrogen drive solution for distribution and scheduled transport. As part of a one-year pilot, one vehicle will be used for distribution and scheduled transport at the Cologne location and the surrounding area, and the other for Post & Parcel Germany in the city center area by the Cologne West Operations branch.
The food wholesaler Troiber uses a PH2P truck as a refrigerated truck to reduce CO2 emissions in its fleet and open the firm to further technologies for CO2-neutral delivery.
“We want to do away with the biggest CO2-causing factor in our company,” says Constantin Troiber, the company’s managing director. “Currently, 60 percent of our emissions are attributable to our fleet, even though most of the vehicles already comply with the Euro 6 emission class. In doing so, we do not want to commit ourselves to just one energy source, but also want to be open to other technologies such as electric drives and e-fuels for CO2-neutral supply in the future.”
