Evidence of meeting #8 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was vehicle.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Liberal
President and Chief Operating Officer, Electric Mobility Canada
I have the answer to that question.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Good, we're eager to hear it.
I understand that Ms. O'Connell will speak on the Liberal side.
Ms. O'Connell, go ahead, please.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
I'm having issues with my Internet, so I had to connect via my cellphone. I'm not sure if you can hear me.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
We can hear you. It's all good.
Do you have a headset for the interpretation?
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
No, the headset doesn't work on my cellphone. I can connect with a different one. Give me a moment.
Perhaps you want to go to one of my colleagues and I'll come back.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Sure, thanks. We can switch spots.
I wanted to start off with Ballard Power.
We've had quite a few presentations on plug-in vehicles, but yours is the first that's really focused on the hydrogen cell technology.
I'm wondering whether the technology enters into the market at a certain horsepower or a certain type of motor or, say, class 5 or class 8 vehicles, or whether they would also be available on smaller vehicles.
Director, Marketing, Ballard Power Systems Inc.
Thank you very much. It's a good question.
Today's technology is available for all types of vehicles from light duty to heavy duty vehicles. I think what is important is trying to identify what is the best case—the use case. Which application.... At the end of the day, it's electrification. Whether it's a fuel cell or a battery, both are electric vehicles. It's a matter of how you bring the energy to the vehicle, how you store the energy on board the vehicle.
Each use case will differ. When you look at heavy duty, the bigger the vehicle is and the larger the payload that you have to carry, then hydrogen makes more sense because you don't have to compete with a very large battery weight against the goods you want to transport. Duty cycles are very important. If you have a taxi, which operates multiple shifts with little time to recharge, hydrogen makes sense. It's a mixture of the use case, the payload and the duty cycle that you want to have.
The technology itself is available. You can have fuel-cell engines, ranging from powering a car all the way to a train. It's just a matter of finding ways of best application based on the use case.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Thank you.
In terms of the climate change impact, when you look at the duty cycle of a normal passenger car, it sits parked for 95% of the time, whereas, a taxi, a freight truck or a delivery truck has closer to 95% usage of vehicle time. The impact on the actual climate change could be higher with the fuel-cell technology as compared to some of the others.
I suppose the mix of the market would be something that would be interesting for us to include in our report.
Director, Marketing, Ballard Power Systems Inc.
Absolutely. Those vehicles tend to have a much higher impact on the emissions compared to a personal car. They operate for longer times and they have more emissions.
I think it's the same thing as the question that was asked before. We need to look at those total life cycle costs. Fuel cell has a big advantage here. It's much less energy intensive to produce. It's the manufacturing part. The life cycle cost of the fuel cell from cradle to grave is also very attractive.
Today at Ballard, we recycle the fuel cells, so when a fuel cell reaches the end of life we can recycle. We rebuild it using the same material and recover 95% of the precious metals that are there. I think it's important to look at the use case as well as the total life cycle cost.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Back in the nineties I was supplying pressure regulators to Ballard in the very early stages of development, so it's interesting to see how far the market has gone.
I'll stay on Ballard just for a little bit longer. I only have a few more minutes. I'm thinking of the parts supply. I mentioned I was supplying pressure regulators. What type of parts supply do you have?
You're in Vancouver, which is outside of the auto parts supply of southern Ontario. How does that integrate with the North American parts supply between Canada and the United States or, in fact, across Canada?
Director, Marketing, Ballard Power Systems Inc.
It's a good question. I think it has changed a lot in the past 10 years. When we started 30 years ago at Ballard, it was very hard to find parts. It was probably too early. Nobody was developing those components. I'm thinking about the components outside of the core of fuel-cell stacks that we make at Ballard; components like the air compressor and DC/DC converters were not available. What we are seeing lately is that a lot of manufacturers, like automotive tier-one suppliers, are looking toward developing components for fuel-cell systems. We have the big names, like the Bosch's of this world or Linamars or those companies. We are starting now to have access to an automotive supply chain that is developing components that we need to build that fuel-cell engine.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
You've mentioned Linamar, which is in my riding. They have a new building where they're making parts for this market. That's why I wanted to put that on the table.
Director, Marketing, Ballard Power Systems Inc.
Yes, and we are working with them—
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
If I might, just quickly say, I think Honda is also procuring a fuel-cell company.
Some of the automotive manufacturers are racing to get into this by acquiring other companies. Is that another market move we might be watching for?
Director, Marketing, Ballard Power Systems Inc.
Yes, we have seen that. We have seen Cummins, the largest manufacturer of diesel engines in North America, purchase Hydrogenics, a Canadian company, so we are seeing the consolidation and integration of some of the value chain in the automotive industry.
I think that's something we are also seeing in Europe a lot. A lot of the tier-one OEMs in Europe have invested in fuel-cell hydrogen technology by either developing it themselves, like Daimler and Volvo, or acquiring companies, like Bosch and other automotive suppliers have done.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
You haven't mentioned the Americans. Are the Americans in this market?
Director, Marketing, Ballard Power Systems Inc.
I mentioned Cummins. Cummins has done investment there. Then, as we know, GM has their own fuel-cell development program that they have accelerated lately.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Very good. That's great information. Thank you for that.
I'll go over to you, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you very much, Mr. Pocard.
I'm told that Mr. Adams has rejoined the meeting. I'm going to give him the floor for five minutes, then we will continue with Ms. Pauzé.
Mr. Adams.
Mr. Adams, you're on mute perhaps.
David Adams President and Chief Executive Officer, Global Automakers of Canada
Yes. Is that better?
Liberal
