New Aussie EV maker unveiled

An ambitious start-up is planning to exploit Australia’s abundant supplies of hydrogen to reboot local vehicle manufacturing.

H2X says it will focus on hydrogen-fuelled heavy-duty fleet vehicles such as trucks and busses initially, but later plans to manufacture a fleet of passenger vehicles.

An SUV called the Snowy has been the centre of promotional material the company has released, but that may not be seen until 2024. Commercial vehicles such as delivery vans and taxis are scheduled to precede it.

The H2X line-up will be powered by a hybrid powertrain leveraging kinetic energy through battery and ultra-capacitor technology with strong focus on hydrogen. The system can vary between power sources depending on the journey.

A key to the H2X roll-out is access to hydrogen refuelling infrastructure that is currently limited to fleet vehicles such as trucks and buses and not available to the general public.

It’s a key reason commercial vehicles with access to refuelling hubs will be launched ahead of passenger vehicles targeted at private sale.

H2X is based in Port Kembla, NSW, is run by a group of experienced automotive industry executives and says it already has enough backing from private industry sources to execute its first generation of heavy vehicles.

It plans to have demonstrable prototypes running by early 2021 and be in production by July.

These vehicles will be based on a chassis supplied by a third party and mated with the powertrain, locally manufactured bodies and interiors in a plant in Port Kembla. H2X wants to achieve 80 per cent local content by 2025.

By then it also hopes to be building 20,000 or more hydrogen-fuelled vehicles per annum with two-thirds of them earmarked for export.

It expects to be employing 5000 staff by 2025 and have generated four to five times that number of jobs along an “Australian oriented” supply chain.

“Today we launch our company which not only demonstrates the advanced technology and engineering capabilities of Australia in the clean energy arena but also provides a real clean alternative in terms of transportation,” said H2X CEO Brendan Norman, an Australian who previously worked for BMW and Volkswagen .

“With the development of many Green Energy projects in Australia at the moment we have a unique opportunity to bring a significant manufacturing operation back into the country.”

Australia has an abundance of the natural resources to make clean hydrogen and a National Hydrogen Strategy has been drawn up to make us a major global player in the industry by 2030.

H2X chief design officer Chris Reitz, who has worked for Audi, VW, Nissan and Fiat, gave a hint of the flavour H2X would try to achieve with its vehicles.

“We have a unique character in our vehicles and we are using Australia’s strong resource, educational and innovation strengths to come up with products which are developed to excel in extreme conditions, and like many things Australian they will win themselves into the hearts and minds of many around the world,” he said.

Joining Norman and Reitz on the management team are powertrain chief Peter Zienau, formerly of General Motors and chief technical officer Ian Thompson whose background includes Lotus and Aston Martin. Chief of corporate strategy is former Toyota employee Alan Marder.

Most of the management group worked together on the Chinese start-up Grove Automotive, which launched three vehicles at the Shanghai show in 2019.

Key backing for H2X in its start-up phase is coming from former motor racing driver Ken Mathews’ renewable energy company Denzo PL and Elvin Group Renewables, best known for environmentally progressive concrete production.

Joining Mathews on the board is Elvin Group MD Samuel Blackadder and Australian auto industry veteran Kevin McCann.