At the IAA Transportation event, a group of industrial and energy companies set out plans to speed the introduction of hydrogen-powered vehicles across Europe. According to Hydrogen Central, Volvo Group, Daimler Truck, Toyota Motor Corporation, Bosch, Air Liquide, TotalEnergies, TEAL Mobility and MB Energy jointly presented the initiative, which centers on building out the entire value chain rather than isolated vehicle programs.

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The companies describe hydrogen as a necessary complement to battery-electric vehicles if the European Union is to meet its decarbonization targets. They point to truck operations that need long range, high payload capacity, rapid refueling and operational flexibility as the segment where hydrogen offers particular advantages, and they frame their cooperation as a way to clear bottlenecks that have held back earlier deployment efforts.

German model as a blueprint

Germany is positioned as the first European market where the conditions for scalable deployment of hydrogen trucks by 2030 have been assembled, with German authorities and industrial participants along the value chain driving the effort. The participants present this German deployment model as a template that could be extended across the continent, provided national governments and the European Commission align their support to safeguard long-term energy resilience and competitiveness.

Vehicle and component commitments

Daimler Truck reports that customers have driven almost 600,000 kilometers with its fuel cell trucks. The company intends to place a small series of 100 next-generation fuel cell trucks into customer operations beginning at the end of 2026, while preparing its first hydrogen combustion engine trucks for market launch next year. It plans to invest a mid-three-digit million euro amount in hydrogen trucks by the end of the decade.

Volvo Group is pursuing a comparable path, investing significant sums in hydrogen power solutions that include both fuel-cell and hydrogen-combustion trucks, with market rollout targeted toward 2030. Toyota joins as a technology partner supporting the expansion of hydrogen mobility, drawing on more than three decades of experience in developing and supplying fuel cell systems. Bosch is contributing key vehicle components for gaseous hydrogen, including a fuel cell system that it says has been proven over more than 30 million kilometers on the road, together with refueling technologies for liquid and gaseous hydrogen.

Energy and infrastructure build-out

On the energy side, Volvo Group and Daimler Truck are working with suppliers such as Air Liquide, TotalEnergies and MB Energy, and with retail operators including MB Energy and TEAL Mobility, a joint venture split evenly between TotalEnergies and Air Liquide that operates under the TotalEnergies brand. These companies are directing their capacities toward scaling both liquid and gaseous hydrogen supply chains.

Their infrastructure investments are aimed at large-capacity, high-throughput refueling stations capable of serving up to 100 trucks per day. The participants also intend to capture synergies with industrial renewable hydrogen production, which is expanding as European RED III rules are implemented. Bringing costs to a level competitive with diesel is described as essential for fleet operators to adopt hydrogen, and the combination of German government policy with industrial collaboration is presented as the mechanism that makes this achievable.

Commercial demand and policy asks

Demand signals are already visible. Applications under Germany’s NOW funding program were oversubscribed, with industrial companies seeking support for more than 70 high-capacity stations and 800 heavy-duty trucks, which the participants cite as evidence of commercial pull from the logistics sector.

With Germany acting as an operational launchpad, the industry leaders are urging strategic measures from national governments and the European Commission to replicate the model at continental scale. Their proposals include synchronized funding calls for refueling stations and vehicles so that Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation targets can be met, harmonized renewable fuel credit mechanisms and toll incentives to improve the commercial case for hydrogen, and joint efforts to de-risk the value chain from production and liquefaction through to final distribution and vehicle operation.

The participants argue that combining industrial execution with a supportive policy framework would underpin the scaling of zero-emission freight while strengthening Europe’s industrial competitiveness, energy resilience and employment, and reducing emissions from freight transport.

Source: IndexBox Market Intelligence Platform