NEWS
Toyota GB heads consortium aiming to bring fuel cell Hilux to market this year
F
rankly, if you don’t buy in to the idea that the world is about to end and it’s all our fault and the only way we can survive is to eat sludge produced by one of the intended WEF food hubs while driving an electric vehicle – then you’re an oxygen thief. However, not everyone got the memo. Toyota UK, Ricardo, European Thermodynamics, Thatcham Research and D2H Advanced Technologies – they don’t sound like the sort of companies that will necessarily follow an eco-religion. In fact, Toyota is well known for saying that electric vehicles may not provide all the answers. In itself a heretical position that should draw the wrath of the modern-day Spanish Inquisition. So what are those companies doing instead? What they’re doing is exploring, in a real-world,
practical way, whether hydrogen fuel cells may be a part of the answer. Toyota already has the second-gen Mirai, which is powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. But if we’re going to advance this technology it has to work in really practical ways. Which is why the companies named above are working together on a two-year project to make the revered Hilux work when powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. The starting point is obviously the system used in the Mirai, but taking what works in a sleek saloon with nice owners on their way to an amusing lunch isn’t necessarily going to work in a commercial vehicle driven by people with steel toecaps on their way to the nearest Greggs. Somewhat excitingly, the group is planning on getting prototypes built this year – with even small-scale production on the cards. Adam
Smith, who is the Senior Engineer at D2H, was talking about the off-highway, construction and utilities sectors and spoke about ‘the challenge of keeping these industries on the move in environments where battery-electric powertrains often prove impractical’. He mentioned his pride at having ‘the opportunity to work with the other consortium partners who all represent the finest talent available within the UK’s automotive industry’. If they can do it, and give the venerable and eternal Hilux a new lease of life in the decades ahead, that will indeed be a significant achievement for the UK’s automotive talent. And they’ll get the thanks of millions of fans around the world too. Some of whom have never even set foot in a Greggs.
Order book now open for Jeep Avenger MY DAD USED TO HAVE A HILLMAN AVENGER. I rode big motorbikes and considered that tinny heap one of the biggest overclaims I’d ever heard. My son listens to Avenged Sevenfold when he’s doing a brutal workout at the gym. Somewhere between those two sits the Jeep Avenger 1st Edition. It also has to navigate between two other elements. It’s the European Car of the Year 2023. But it’s also touted by Jeep as a ‘fully electric SUV’. Jeep are careful to steer away from the car bit and keep reminding everyone it’s an off-roader. ‘True to the Jeep DNA, the new Avenger offers impressive ground clearance, approach, breakover and departure angles for its segment’, it somewhat anxiously reminds us. Should you wish to become an Avenger, whether a Marvel Studios one, or John Steed clone or someone who sweats to ‘This Means War’ (you can’t have one of the tin box Avengers, they’ve all rusted away - I hope) then you can pre-order one with prices starting at £36,500 OTR.
8 | MARCH 2023
5pp Scene News Mar 23.indd 8
4x4 13/02/2023 23:50
