Hydrogen Vehicle Systems’ (HVS) consortium Hub2Hub, has been awarded £6.6 million (NZ$12.47 million) to develop and deliver an autonomous zero-emission HGV for the UK market.

The Hub2Hub consortium will create a self-driving heavy goods tractor unit, which will begin vehicle trials in 2024, with major UK retailer, ASDA.

The £12 million (NZ$22.68 million) venture has been selected by the Centre for Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) as a recipient for its joint industry and government-funded project with the aim of showcasing the potential of autonomy in the transportation sector with unprecedented levels of efficiency, safety and operational cost savings for logistics operators, as well as providing new employment opportunities.

HVS will receive £3.4 million (NZ$6.42 million) as one of seven grants from the CCAV and Connected and Automated Mobility (CAM) programme.

The consortium, made up of HVS, Fusion Processing Ltd and ASDA, will build two prototype vehicles that will allow Level 4 autonomous-driving.

The first hydrogen-electric HGV prototype will be fitted with a driver’s cab and tested on the road in autonomous operation, using Fusion Processing’s Automated Drive System, CAVStar, with a human safety driver at the wheel.

The second prototype will have the driver’s cab removed and replaced by an aerodynamic fairing. During the project, this vehicle will be evaluated on test tracks, with the CAVStar system in this application allowing a remote human driver, located in a control hub, to operate the vehicle.

Together these two prototypes point to an optimised future logistics system where vehicles could be operated in autonomous mode on a hub-to-hub route, with a remote driver then taking control to drive the vehicle from the hub to its end destination.