Electrification of Hard-to-Decarbonize Transportation Sectors: Battery and Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technologies for Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles

Dear Colleagues,

The scientific community is called to contribute to this Special Issue with the main goal of answering the question of how to decarbonize medium- and heavy-duty vehicles for on-road and off-road applications.

Transportation is the movement of people, goods, and services via a multiplicity of modes, including personal vehicles, public transit, trucking and freight, rail, aviation, and marine. This fundamental need requires a substantial consumption of energy. In fact, transportation is the largest energy consumption end-use sector, followed by the industrial, residential, and commercial sectors. The primary energy source for transportation are fossil fuels; therefore, the carbon greenhouse gas emissions of this sector are substantial. Sustainable mobility is (or should be) transportation with an environmental, economic, social, and human health conscience. With respect to the environmental aspect, the reduction of carbon emissions is of primary importance for a sustainable mobility, and vehicle electrification represents a great opportunity to deploy clean and efficient vehicles. While battery electric vehicles (BEV) and hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) have demonstrated to represent a feasible solution to decarbonize passenger cars and light-duty vehicles, when it comes to medium- and heavy-duty (MDHD) vehicles (including off-road), there is a number of constraints that currently limit the adoption of BEVs and HEVs. The constraints that make the MDHD sector hard-to-decarbonize include, but are not limited to, the variety of duty-cycles and vocations, the required driving range, the decreased performance in harsh climate conditions, the lack of infrastructure to support the energy demand of fully electric commercial fleets, the long recharging or refuelling time, and the high capital cost. A promising technology that has the potential to overcome some of the above mentioned barriers is the fuel cell. Hydrogen fuel cells vehicles (FCV) can achieve range and refuelling times comparable to those of conventional vehicles and are, for this reason, receiving increasing attention.

This Special Issue will cover vehicle technologies that use batteries and/or fuel cells to optimize vehicle energy consumption and powertrain systems operations, with the goal of reducing the carbon footprint of MDHD vehicles. Contributions may include innovative powertrain designs and control technologies, battery and fuel cell materials development, energy efficient auxiliary systems, battery recharging and hydrogen refuelling technologies. Concepts and technologies supported by experimental studies are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Laura Tribioli
Dr. Manfredi Villani
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• sustainable mobility
• decarbonization
• medium- and heavy duty vehicles electrification
• off-road vehicles electrification
• battery and fuel cell designs and materials to reduce aging and increase durability
• powertrain sizing
• powertrain control
• advanced powertrain architectures
• energy management and optimization
• co-optimization of components and control strategy
• battery recharging and fast charging technologies
• hydrogen refuelling technologies
• heat rejection and thermal management of battery electric and fuel cell vehicles