The ZERE vans are the company’s brainchild and demonstrate the power of hybridised battery-electric and fuel cell-powered commercial vehicles.
James Batchelor, managing director of Intelligent Energy’s Motive division, explains that the prototype on display is the first stage in the UK-based consortium project supported by funding from the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) to develop a new class of range-extended commercial vehicles.
He says that not only will Intelligent Energy’s new ZERE van run with no tailpipe emissions, but it also overcomes the range limitations of pure battery-electric vans – offering realistic multi-drop, metropolitan distribution capabilities, with hydrogen refuelling.
And he adds that the ZERE vehicle is capable of extended continuous operation, also improving productivity by reducing wannabe operators’ daily dependency on lengthy downtime for charging batteries.
The technologies used in ZERE – a fuel cell providing range extension capability to a factory-fitted battery electric driveline – are being further developed in an APC-supported project led by Intelligent Energy, with partners including Millbrook, Frost Electronics, Frost EV Systems, Cenex, British Gas and DHL.