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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