Hyzon Motors to develop Class 8 FCEV with Hyliion drive
Hyzon Motors has announced a collaboration with Hyliion to jointly develop a heavy-duty fuel cell vehicle. The companies will combine Hyzon’s fuel cell technology and Hyliion’s electric powertrain solution in a prototype vehicle.
Hyzon and Hyliion will build the new fuel cell vehicle on a Class 8 Sleeper chassis and expect to complete the prototype by early Q4 this year. US Class 8 vehicles are categorised as trucks weighing more than 14.969 tonnes.
The new FCEV will come together under a Technology Development Agreement, with Hyzon and Hyliion considering the outcome a “meaningful step in the transition of long-haul heavy-duty trucking to zero-emissions”.
The collaboration shall further eliminate duplicative costs and improve vehicle performance and reliability of the fuel cell Class 8 semi-truck.
These are about the only details made public in today’s annoucement.
As for the partners, Hyliion is based in Cedar Park in the US state of Texas. The company is working with the German service provider FEV among others, on a heavy-duty truck with an e-drive combined with a generator powered by natural gas to charge the battery. As reported, the Hypertruck ERX is to have a total range of 1,000 miles, i.e. 1,609 kilometres, with the natural gas range extender. With the buffer battery charged, it is only 40 kilometres.
With Hyzon, another alternative drive system is now coming into focus. Hyzon Motors builds fuel cell commercial vehicles in the USA and Europe. The company was able to expand very quickly after its founding in March 2020 because it was able to draw on the technology, expertise and personnel of Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies – a hydrogen fuel cell company founded in Singapore some 18 years ago. Hyzon Motors has been listed on the stock exchange since February 2021, the IPO was carried out via SPAC merger with Nasdaq-listed Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corporation. The European headquarters in Groningen were already opened in July 2020.
Hyzon Motors is headquartered in Rochester, N.Y., with operations in the Chicago and Detroit areas and international offices in the Netherlands, Singapore, Australia, Germany, and China.
Still, the Hyliion deal comes amid uncertain times for Hyzon, especially in Europe. They let the former CEO Craig Knight go in August 2022 and had already indicated at that time that it had identified “operational inefficiencies” at Hyzon Motors Europe. After a relatively long silence from the company that also operates in Australasia, the Middle East, USA, and China, the company in December last year took full ownership of its European operations and may be reaching quite waters.
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