Liebherr’s Hydrogen Excavator Stars at Bauma

Amid all the excitement of climbing up into the cab of the new R 9300 mining excavator, and sitting in the driving seat of the T 274 rigid mining dumptruck, I kind of forgot to get any video footage of Liebherr’s hydrogen powered excavator, but fortunately I have dug out some on You Tube.

The R 9XX H2 is Liebherr’s first excavator powered by a hydrogen combustion engine, and for me it signals that the race is now fully on to be the first manufacturer to launch full production models featuring this alternative power source into the construction machinery sector.

JCB has been showing us glimpses of their hydrogen powered machines for some time now, and of course Hyundai also presented a hydrogen fuelled example at Bauma. Many industry commentators feel it is the true way forward, especially for larger machines, where battery size does present a problem as far as electric power is concerned.

The Innovation Award Winning R 9XX H2 prototype example has been developed by Liebherr-France SAS in Colmar and uses an H966 engine from Liebherr Machines Bulle in Switzerland.

The prototype H966 6-cylinder engine has been designed for demonstration and further field trialling. It is based on intake manifold injection technology.

Liebherr say that the hydrogen unit drive emits almost zero NOx and CO2 tailpipe emissions and reduces whole life CO2 emissions by 70%.

In this video from our friends over at IVT International the machine is seen working during one of the regular demo slots.