Australian hydrogen fuel-cell carmaker H2X Global has announced the release of the first production of its Warrego all-wheel drive pick-up truck.
The Warrego is now undergoing final validation and verification testing procedures in the Netherlands as it heads towards gaining European and global certification. Australian certification testing will commence soon.
The Warrego follows the successful production and launch of a range of hydrogen fuel cell emergency power and industrial use generators.
“It is extremely satisfying that our team now have the Warrego running through the final stages of its engineering, safety and on-road verification program and production readiness,” Brendan Norman, H2X Global CEO and founder, said.
“We have indeed had some frustrating delays over the past nine months; however, we are now well on track with our rollout plans,” Mr Norman said.
“Supply chain issues, which have negatively impacted manufacturing companies worldwide, put us about nine months behind schedule; however, our production and engineering teams have done an amazing job to overcome these problems, and we are now back on schedule.”
H2X Global has released a video of the Warrego as it moves towards European Homologation and Certification.
The Warrego is H2X Global’s first application to demonstrate the company’s capabilities platform that will be used as a basis for the upcoming all-new H2X Darling Delivery Van in a couple of years. This will be the first of the fully developed and optimised vehicles from H2X.
After the vehicle is ready to go through the process of global homologation, optimisation and improvement efforts are taking place to enhance its performance.
Brendan Norman said the focus for the first Warrego had been for a European release for several reasons but mainly due to the availability of hydrogen at the customer level in several cities where to order status has been high and government support is present to develop the Hydrogen economy.
The Warrego Pickup features a full version of the H2X powertrain developed for light vehicles featuring a Supercapacitor-based Hybrid system operating in AWD mode.
“The Warrego is essentially a demonstration vehicle which we can offer to several customers to accelerate the availability of an AWD light commercial vehicles to customers, using a state-of-the-art Hybrid Hydrogen Fuel Cell System.” Says Brendan Norman, CEO of H2X Global.
“This application will be applied in a more optimised form in the Darling Delivery Van and Taxi/MPV targeted for release to support the large number of European cities which will be closed off from Diesel and Petrol vehicles from 2025.”
The first release Warrego features a 60-kW fuel cell connected to a hybrid battery/supercapacitor electric drive system. This is connected to a 700-bar type 4 hydrogen tank system constructed of an advanced polymer and Carbon Fibre base, which offers exceptional safety levels with very long standards of operation.
While this will allow the car to work at the lower 350 bar compression, it can run at much higher compression rates which will double the range per tank.
The Warrego will be available to customers over the coming months and in line with the availability of hydrogen. The vehicle will be produced in Europe and Australia at the H2X facility in Sale, Victoria.
