BUSINESS INTERVIEW
want to construct our own fuel station
within our company grounds. Until all
of this is complete, we will be making
use of mobile fuel stations.
You say that this new technology
will make it easy to work in extreme
conditions and access difficult areas,
such as forests. And with this access,
it will be able to withstand high levels
of dust and harsh climates. Did you
have to adapt the vehicle concept to
hydrogen power, or did you mostly
base it off of previous Tatra models?
The basis of our design philosophy in
developing the hydrogen Tatra is maintaining TATRA-MOBILITY, that is, keeping our chassis design. A commonly
available electric motor is connected
to the downshift gearbox through a connective shaft. The advantages of this,
other than the fact that we get to keep
our Tatra chassis, are that the electric
motor can be placed within the protected zone above the spinal carrier pipe
without affecting the rigidity of the en-
tire chassis The compatibility of this solution with a multi-stage gearbox gives
us the ability to manufacture this new
chassis on our current assembly line.
As far as dustiness and extreme climate conditions are concerned, this is
the main reason why we are creating
this prototype - solving issues with air
intakes for fuel cells, starting the vehicle at low ambient temperatures or general operation in freezing conditions.
These will be the subjects of our consortium solution as well as the subjects
of rigorous tests.
“
Vehicles are now essentially
becoming mobile computers.
se the safety of their operators. Due to
environmental concerns and pressure,
I believe that it is almost certain that
consumer passenger vehicles will follow
the path of electric power. When it comes to cargo vehicles, however, I do
not think the path is as clear. Personally,
I would not discount the possible future
use of hydrogen or synthetic fuel combustion engines. There are still multiple
options of how to deal with carbon neutrality while maintaining the current standard of user-friendliness.
Mr Smolka, thank you
for the interview.
”
As a final question, I would like to ask
something a bit more hypothetical.
How do you think the automotive
world will develop?
Vehicles are now essentially becoming
mobile computers full of electronics that
make their operation easy and increa-
Text: redakce
Foto: archiv TATRA TRUCKS a.s.
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