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Stellantis: series production of hydrogen vans in France

The Stellantis CEO announced during his visit to a plant in the Haut-de-France region of France that small commercial vehicles of Peugeot, Opel and Citroen car brands will be produced in hydrogen-powered form with fuel cells in the future. The vehicles should be designed for use by commercial users. They will have a range of 400 kilometers and can be refueled within short 3 minutes. If necessary, the battery can even be recharged for 50 kilometers with the so-called plug-in support. The payload is no different from the all-electric models and is about 1000 kilograms.
Hordain is the first plant in the world capable of combining three different drive types due to the flexibility of its production systems. Stellantis wants to work to invest in advanced technologies and promote low-carbon mobility. The focus is on the “One Company” principle. The production of these vehicles fits into the production of electric and combustion engines already existing at the “Multi-Energy Line” site. The platform of the fuel cell models will be adapted in body construction. They will then go through the same production line as the other two drive types in terms of painting and assembly. The final production takes place on a newly created plant, which is exclusively dedicated to this new version. Specially trained personnel is now responsible for installing the hydrogen tanks, the additional batteries and the fuel cell. As this can now be completed at the Hordain plant, it is significantly less-time consuming compared with the previous small-series process.