The UK’s first hydrogen fuel cell heavy commercial vehicle OEM, Hydrogen Vehicle Systems (HVS), has celebrated the latest milestone in its vehicle testing and development program with its second test vehicle, X2.0, performing its first trailer pull during trials on the high-speed track at UTAC Millbrook. 

Powered by green hydrogen, X2.0 is one of a series of engineering prototypes. Each testing phase focuses on different aspects of the vehicle design and will be used alongside computer-aided engineering models.

The UK-built prototypes all feature a HVS hydrogen fuel cell powertrain designed to deliver fast refuelling, heavier payloads and long range. It also only emits water from the tailpipe, which was visible on the test day.

The truck test is designed to provide real-world test track data, which when combined with dyno test data gathered to date, will be used to refine the vehicle set-up and provide systems calibration and optimization. Specifically, data points from the vehicle‘s powertrain functional software and performance under physical tests will now begin to be mapped to the virtual world.

John McKenna, chief technical officer at HVS, said, “It’s less than one year on from launching our HGV technology demonstrator, and we are already on the test track showing our incredible progress with our first trailer pull with an HVS fuel cell truck.”