The vehicles will now be able to undertake customer trials on public roads commencing January 2023 for a period of 24 months, during which the Company expects to collect significant proprietary data from fleet owners and to capture high-level interest for future orders. The vans will be trialled in real-world conditions with major fleet operators initially in the UK and enable First Hydrogen to publicly showcase its leading design and accelerate the adoption by light commercial vehicle owners of fuel cell-powered vehicles to replace ageing diesel fleets. A total of 13 UK fleet operators in various industries including telecoms, utilities, infrastructure, delivery, grocery and healthcare have signed up to participate in the trials.
These two demonstrator vehicles will showcase the advantages fuel cell electric vehicles have over battery electric vehicles in terms of range and refuelling speed. First Hydrogen vehicles offer 400-600 km of range on a single refuelling, which takes a matter of minutes. The certification is a significant milestone for the Company and will help with further approvals required as First Hydrogen scales up its vehicle demonstrator program to trial the vehicles in the European Union, United States and Canada. The global light commercial vehicle market is projected to reach $786.5 billion by 2030 and First Hydrogen's vehicles will help the sector meet zero emission targets.
First Hydrogen is also working in parallel to arrange green hydrogen generation and distribution under its ‘Hydrogen as a Service’ or Haas programme to provide a holistic solution to the market. The company’s plans are now underway in the UK, Europe, and North America to provide this solution.
“This is an important step which validates our engineering and technical expertise” said Steve Gill, CEO of Automotive for First Hydrogen. “The whole team has worked hard to deliver this certification and we can now move forward with the important customer trials commencing in early 2023.”
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