Hydrogen can help motor industry wean off fossil fuels, says JLR’s Jon Tongue

July 30, 2024

Jaguar Land Rover’s Sustainability Manager Jon Tongue says ‘diversity is key’ to the motor industry weaning itself off a reliance on fossil fuels – and feels hydrogen has an important role to play.

Driving Hydrogen interviewed Tongue, who has worked for JLR since doing an apprenticeship with them in 1998, and now works in their Sustainability team.

JLR have built a hydrogen prototype based on their Defender as part of Project Zeus, an advanced engineering project which is part funded by the government‑backed Advanced Propulsion Centre – with the company also working closely with AVL Powertrain UK Ltd.

Tongue said: “I like hydrogen and I think it has a future. I’d like to know more about that test car [Project Zeus] but there hasn’t been much published on it.

Land Rover Defender, European Model close-up

“There won’t be any technical problems running it – because a fuel cell is not a brand new technology.

“That’s not going to be a problem – the problem will be the cost and the supply of the hydrogen fuel itself.”

Diversity is key

Tongue added: “We have created a situation where we are addicted to fossil fuels – we all know that we have got to wean ourselves off fossil fuels.

“The future is no fossil fuels but how you get from here to there is not a straight line – it’s lots of different, squiggly lines – diversity is key.

“There’s a hydrogen project in the north called Hynet, and we were hoping to take advantage of that – there have been delays though and we need more certainty if we are going to rely on hydrogen as a driver for industrial decarbonisation.

“Our paint shop is very energy intensive on our manufacturing sites and we don’t really have a great alternative to natural gas at the moment.

‘You’ve potentially got bio gas which you could argue is a carbon neutral solution but you are ultimately still burning stuff and that generates other emissions that need to be managed.

Every use case is different

“Hydrogen obviously burns cleaner – but to generate green hydrogen consumes a significant amount of renewable energy, a large proportion of which is lost in the process and further losses are generated if further processes are required to compress or liquify, a likely requirement in automotive industry to limit space for fuel tank.

“So the question that arises is, for smaller electric vehicles at least, why not just pass the green electricity directly to the car and – it’s more efficient that way.

“This is why every use case is different.

“For Halewood we are definitely [considering hydrogen] – and we would do at other plants as well, but the government doesn’t have a clear enough [plan yet]…if we are planning a brand new paint shop, for example, that’s a lot of money to outlay – we would need strong guarantees from the government that they are going to deliver on their promises.

“You can do it on site – we have looked at electrolysers on site – but it’s very energy and water intensive, so we’ve just got those same questions…if we were generating all that renewable energy, would we put it into hydrogen? It’s a consideration – and as and when the infrastructure is in place, it will be a strong consideration.”

When asked what the biggest challenge facing hydrogen is, Tongue said: “I think it is infrastructure.

“There’s also a public perception of hydrogen – there was going to be a pilot with housing being powered by hydrogen – but people still think of the Hindenburg, and think that’s what’s going to happen.

“I think the other part of it is efficiency. An energy and transport analyst, Michael Sura, who I use as a resource on LinkedIn – does these great little schematics of round trip efficiency diagram comparisons which really help to visualise and compare with competing powertrain solutions.

“I chat with him fairly regularly on various things to learn about the topic and for efficiency, I tend to look at his work.”

Prioritise hydrogen for bigger trucks

Tongue feels that the automobile industry needs to take a blended approach to weaning off the dependency on fossil fuels, adding: “If I could take all of the resources needed for batteries, I would prioritise them for use vehicles that only need small battery packs (up to 40kW) such as small EVs and hybrids over trucks which tend to need packs of up to 900kW to achieve any sort of practical range.

“I would prioritise hydrogen for bigger trucks.

“I think we’ve just got to completely change the thinking. How we always used to do it is gone.

“Riversimple have this model where they effectively create the hydrogen filling station first, then once they’ve got that in place, they go out and market within a 50-mile radius, and that’s how they expand.

The Riversimple car is powered by hydrogen and costs around £17 to fill a tank.

“With electric cars, everyone is obsessed with range, saying you’ve got to have 500 miles range – but you haven’t really.

“The point is with hydrogen and fuel is that you wouldn’t have to have it as the primary source – you could have a much smaller battery that can do 100 miles, but then have hydrogen as a back-up, like a fuel cell powered range extender, which then recharges the battery.

“It all just comes down to reinventing the car – what is the most efficient way to move a car from point A to point B?

“Electric motors are practically frictionless, so that seems like the best solution for propulsion. A right-sized battery to store enough energy to complete 90% of daily use cases – and then some form of range extender that could be hydrogen, or efuels, for when longer distances are needed.”