On March 17, IRU, the world road transport organization, announced that IRU and members have joined the H2Accelerate TRUCKS project to advance the decarbonization of long-haul trucks across the European Union. H2Accelerate TRUCKS, which consists of hydrogen producers, infrastructure operators, and vehicle manufacturers, will test 150 hydrogen heavy-duty vehicles on the main north-south corridors connecting Scandinavia to Italy.
IRU hosted the kick-off meeting of H2Accelerate TRUCKS, which is a key EU-funded project for the deployment of hydrogen trucks spearheaded by the H2Accelerate partnership, in Brussels. The H2Accelerate partnership has also secured funding for the deployment of eight heavy-duty hydrogen refueling stations through the EU funding instrument “Connecting Europe Facility”.
This project will fund the deployment of 150 fuel cell trucks across Europe by the mid-to-late 2020s, allowing the development of the technology towards series manufacturing of the vehicles by the three major OEMs (Daimler Truck, Volvo Group, and Iveco Group) in the second half of the decade.
The trucks to be deployed in the first stage are expected to be either 4×2 or 6×2, with up to 44-ton capacity and long ranges of at least 600km. The funding granted by the Clean Hydrogen Partnership of EUR 30M will enable the coordinated roll-out of heavy-duty, zero-emission vehicles fueled by green hydrogen.
Based on press release from IRU/ H2Accelerate