Etude exploratoire de profils d'exploitants de flottes de véhicules pouvant être potentiellement intéressés par une motorisation à l'hydrogène

Abstract

The purpose of the project thesis is to make recommendations to the firm Cockerill Maintenance & Ingénierie about the hydrogen fuel market in Wallonia and Brussels. CMI would like to know if there is a demand for a hydrogen refuelling station and thus also for some vehicles. CMI has the intent to sell a hydrogen refuelling station of a relatively big size, which will be used at the maximum of its capacity. As the market is almost inexistent, an exploratory qualitative study is required in this case to identify drivers and barriers of a behaviour in relation to the hydrogen technology. This project has been delimited to commercialized vehicles, including buses, commercial vehicles, cars and forklifts. Studies have determined that potential clients are firms with a captive fleet. Therefore, a minimum number of vehicles per captive fleet has been required to be part of the sample. In order to identify drivers and barriers of potential users related to the hydrogen technology, individual depth interviews were chosen. All the data collected were used to assess the attractiveness of the fuel hydrogen market and to segment this new market. Then, an analysis of the needs of each segment was made. After this analysis, two of the four segments were chosen according to their potential to adopt this technology and to their fit with CMI objective. To help CMI to address these potential users, a value proposition has been defined for the segments of the buses and of the forklifts. Some recommendations have been made about the approach to take with these segments considering CMI’s weaknesses and strengths related to what potential clients expects from the firm. Eventually, it seems that a demand for hydrogen fuel will appear in a few years. This is mainly due to the high costs of the hydrogen solution and to a context which is not promulgating this technology. Only early adopters will grab the opportunity now.