Hydra Energy Adds To Heavy-duty Fleet With World’s First Hydrogen-converted Armoured Vehicle

Vancouver’s Hydra Energy, the world’s first Hydrogen-as-a-Service (HaaS™) provider for commercial fleets, is celebrating Earth Day with the announcement of its second heavy-duty truck fleet customer, Veteran Express Secure Logistics (VEXSL).

The announcement follows on the heels of its initial milestone customer announcement with Lodgewood Enterprises late last year and marks the world’s first hydrogen-converted armoured vehicle.

Hydra continues to decarbonize the Western Canadian trucking industry through its practical hydrogen-diesel retrofit approach providing a transitional step on the path to Net Zero.

VEXSL is a veteran-owned and operated transportation logistics service that uniquely merges the security of armoured vehicles with the high-volume transport nature of the freight industry to move climate sensitive, high-risk, and high-value goods within British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and soon the U.S.

“At VEXSL, we provide purposeful career opportunities to the first responder and military veteran workforce and strive to incorporate the latest technology for safer, more secure supply chains,” said VEXSL CEO, Cole Fouillard.

“Retrofitting our trucks to now lessen our impact on the environment is a natural next step in our continued commitment to the communities we serve and to the ESG goals we subscribe to. The best part is Hydra’s hydrogen truck conversions cost us nothing to implement, don’t negatively impact truck performance or warranties, and don’t require us to wait over a year for new trucks as they can retrofit existing ones.”

Hydra’s proprietary hydrogen-diesel, co-combustion injection systems will be installed at no cost to VEXSL. In exchange, VEXSL agrees to a long-term, low-carbon hydrogen fuel contract that includes fueling infrastructure where trucks will refuel just as quickly as diesel. The contracted hydrogen will be priced at the forecasted diesel equivalent meaning the fleets’ operational costs should not increase.

Additionally, each truck will reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by up to 67 tonnes per year with no loss in fuel efficiency, range, power, torque, or payload capacity – even in the cold Canadian winters. This comes as GHG emissions fast approach pre-pandemic levels thanks in large part to increased freight pollution.

“Alberta was a natural next step for our HaaS offering to connect from our Prince George hub further east into Canada along trucking routes,” said Hydra Energy CEO, Jessica Verhagen.

“We applaud the Alberta government’s efforts to enable further demonstration of the use of hydrogen in heavy-duty transportation, recognizing that transportation markets have the potential to rapidly scale their decarbonization efforts with Hydra’s commercially available technology once increased refuelling infrastructure is in place.”