After Successful Trials, Cellcentric Moves to Build NextGen Fuel Cell for Anyone

The company owned by Daimler and Volvo thinks its NextGen 375-kW fuel cell stack for Class 8 trucks will eventually be at near operating-cost parity with diesel (but with zero emissions) and well ahead of battery electric long-haulers.

May 16, 2025

Chris Clonts

Cellcentric CTO Nicholas Loughlan gives a tour of its current hydrogen fuel cell system, the BZA150, on the floor of the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo in Anaheim, California. (Chris Clonts)

After successful trials in Europe, the Daimler/Volvo joint venture that develops hydrogen fuel cells for heavy-duty long-haul trucks says it is preparing to produce a cost-reducing, next-generation cell stack for any truck manufacturer that wants to buy it. The key to Cellcentric’s plan: A belief that once at scale, its new fuel cell stacks will be close to parity and far better than battery electric solutions on a total-cost-of-ownership (TCO) basis, especially for long-haul purposes.

The company is making preparations to build at scale what it calls its NextGen fuel cell, a single unit that will produce more power than two BZA150s. (Cellcentric)

Nicholas Loughlan, the company’s CTO, said that development of the first-generation system began in earnest in 2018, when the EU first passed a regulatory plan calling for drastically reduced CO2 emissions. He said it became clear that “especially the more energy-intensive applications would require something [other than diesel], which would be, at the end of the day, hydrogen based. Trucking is a TCO game. Fuel cells come into play because their efficiency is unmatched.” On the eve of the 2025 ACT Expo in Anaheim, California, Loughlan and Cellcentric head of sales and marketing Joachim Ladra briefed SAE Media on the company’s next-generation fuel cell stack and why they’re confident they can scale the zero-emission technology.

The unit the company has on the road in Europe today, the BZA150, is used in pairs in the same space as a diesel engine. Together the units generate 390 hp (285 kW) and weigh about 1,100 lb (499 kg). That’s about half the weight of most comparable integrated diesel powertrains. Loughlan said that in 2023, a Mercedes-Benz GenH2 truck powered by dual BZA150 cell stacks set a record range of 650 miles (1,047 km) on public roads with one fill-up of 80 kg of liquid H2. The system has also been tested above the Arctic Circle and in Europe’s toughest high-altitude mountain passes where conditions can challenge a diesel’s ability to restart when off. Loughlan said the next-generation Cellcentric stack offers high power, low weight, long range, high flexibility and zero emissions. It will be ready soon for use in North America, Europe and globally. At the ACT Expo, Loughlan talked about the NextGen in front of a full-size model that showed off the dimensions and some design features. Among the features:

Up to 375 kW (500+ hp) from a single unit designed to fit into a standard 13-liter diesel engine compartment
A total weight of about 400 kg (881 lb)
Designed to run at higher temperatures, reducing onboard cooling requirements
40% reduction of waste heat at 300 kW
40% more power density
40% reduction in mechanical complexity.

Loughlan said the increased efficiency (a 40-ton HD truck will need about 9.7 kg of hydrogen to travel 100 miles) is due primarily to three factors: an increase in the active cell area, improved membrane electrode assembly (MEA) efficiency by using different catalysts and improved cathode pressure to take better advantage of the battery. He also said that the BZA150 and the NextGen stacks can provide max power essentially indefinitely, unlike some fuel cell systems. “The question is, can your fuel cell system provide 150 kilowatts forever, or after two minutes does it have to go down to 90 kW in order to protect itself? That’s similar to a diesel engine at altitude when it can’t get enough air,” he said. “This is something we take pride in: Our fuel cell systems don’t need to de-rate to protect themselves.”

The full view of the BZA150. In trial deployments, two units have been placed in Daimler and Volvo HD trucks. (Chris Clonts)

Loughlan essentially cited Murphy’s law when asked why the company would move to a single more-powerful fuel cell powering a truck rather than two BZA150s. “Redundancy means if you’ve got a quality problem, you’ve got it twice, right? Every hose needs to be there twice, coming from the truck and having the fuel distributed, the cooling distributed,” he said. “It’s just a lot more complexity, vehicle installation in the plant, all that kind of stuff. We’re growing up from two medium duties to one heavy duty.” Loughlan is optimistic that near-parity to energy capacity-to-payload ratios can be achieved. Marketing chief Ladra said that it could depend on local regulations. “When you look at payload, it depends a lot on how much payload is allowed by law in the region where we operate it,” he said. “We see that in an increasing number of countries, especially in Europe, there is a higher payload allowed for trucks that are CO2 neutral.” He said those laws were put in place for BEV trucks, but that hydrogen has an advantage by not having to account for two tons of battery packs.

The functional result is that hydrogen trucks are allowed an extra two tons of payload. The BZA150, which Cellcentric will continue to produce for partners and testing programs, is assembled at its Esslingen, Germany plant. Loughlan said the company makes all of the fuel cell system’s components itself. Why? “The assembly is pretty much like an engine assembly. It’s not too dissimilar. It’s about the in-house parts that we do completely control. That’s important, because if you can control the most valuable asset, you can design it to your exact performance requirements.” He said that the fuel cell core is the most valuable asset. “We [do everything from] mixing the electrocatalyst ink that coats the cathode, to making the bipolar plates for the fuel cells.” In addition, he said the company assembles the turbocharged hydrogen pumps in-house, and also manufactures all hoses and pipes. Neither Loughlan nor Ladra would commit to a timeline for producing the NextGen cell, other than saying that they hope to be at scale production by the end of the decade. They don’t want

CTO Loughlan showed a pre-ACT 2025 gathering of journalists a slide that gives a glimpse at how the company arrived at its business case for fuel cells. (Cellcentric)

to rush ahead of demand, either. “The timeline needs to be carefully aligned with build-up of infrastructure, for obvious reasons,” Ladra said, “because the best fuel cell system in the world will do no good and not serve any customer needs if you can’t get the fuel to run the trucks.”

But they’ll be ready if the time comes. Cellcentric is so confident that it can scale that it has already bought land in Weilheim/Teck for a large plant – already named Klima Werk (climate factory) to manufacture the 375-kW system and other future iterations.