Hydrogen Fuel Cell Truck Logistics

Fuel Cell Truck Logistics

Klean Industries, with Nikola Corporation, Enapter, H2 Core Systems and Plug Power, is developing a hydrogen-powered supply chain for end-of-life tire collection.

Tire and scrap collection is heavy, repetitive, regional haulage — the hardest part of road freight to decarbonise with batteries and the easiest to serve with hydrogen. Loads are dense, routes return to a fixed depot, and the depot in this case is a plant that makes hydrogen. That is why fuel cell trucking fits scrap logistics before it fits almost anything else.

The vehicle

The fleet is built around Nikola Tre Fuel Cell Electric Class 8 trucks. They cover up to 500 miles per refuel, refuel in a timeframe comparable to diesel, and emit only water vapour. For a collection operator that means route patterns and shift structures survive the switch instead of being redesigned around charging windows.

The loop

Trucks collect end-of-life tires and deliver them to a Klean facility. The facility converts that feedstock into domestic energy, sustainable commodities and green hydrogen. The hydrogen refuels the trucks on site. Each additional tonne collected strengthens the fuel supply for the vehicles collecting it, and fuel exposure shifts from a volatile diesel market to an asset the operator controls.

Why partners matter

A closed loop only works if the vehicle, the electrolysis and gas handling, the storage and the dispensing are engineered as one system. Nikola supplies the trucks; Enapter and H2 Core Systems contribute hydrogen production and handling technology; Plug Power contributes fuel cell and hydrogen infrastructure capability. Klean integrates them around the conversion plant.

Fleet sizing, route modelling, hydrogen demand per shift, capital phasing and total cost of ownership are worked up per operator and per corridor. Those models are shared in direct discussion.

The wider case is simple arithmetic for a collection business. Diesel is a bought-in cost with no upside and a tightening regulatory outlook; hydrogen produced at the plant you already deliver to is an internal transfer. The same loop also answers the question customers and regulators increasingly ask of waste contractors, which is not whether material is diverted but how it was moved.