Renault and Plug Power are launching Hyvia.
The joint venture is equally owned by the two partners and is chaired by David Holderbach, who has more than 20 years of experience in strategic, product and international sales at the Renault Group.
The name Hyvia is a contraction of Hy, for hydrogen and the Latin word, Via, for road.
Hyvia’s activities will be carried out at existing Renault facilities in France:
- The head office of the joint venture as well as the R&D teams will be located at Villiers-Saint-Frédéric, with the light commercial vehicle engineering and development centre for Renault Group, to maximise synergy across teams
- The process, manufacturing and logistics teams will be based in Flins, as part of the Re-Factory project and plan to begin the assembly of fuel cells and recharging stations by end of 2021
- The first vehicles, based on Renault Master, will be assembled at the Batilly plant
- The fuel cell integration will be carried out by PVI, a subsidiary of Renault Group since 2017, located in Gretz-Armainvilliers
Renault says the Hyvia integrated hydrogen technology complements its E-Tech technology, increasing vehicle range to 500km with a recharging time of three minutes.
The first three fuel cell vehicles brought to market by Hyvia will be based on the Renault Master platform and should be available in Europe by end of 2021 and accompanied by the deployment of charging stations and the supply of green hydrogen:
- Transport of goods: Van version and Chassis cab version for large volumes
- Transport of people: City bus version
“As a pioneer in new energies and the European leader in electric light commercial vehicles, Renault Group is pursuing its objective of having the greenest mix on the market by 2030 with the creation of Hyvia, said Renault CEO, Luca de Meo.
“This joint venture integrates the entire hydrogen mobility ecosystem in a unique way, from the vehicle to infrastructure and turnkey services for customers. The development of this cutting-edge technology will enable us to strengthen our industrial base and set up new value-generating activities in France in this promising segment.”
For his part, Hyvia CEO, David Holderbach, added: “Renault has been a hydrogen pioneer since 2014 with more than a hundred light commercial vehicles on the road.
“Hyvia is now opening a new path towards decarbonation with a complete offering of hydrogen solutions.
“Hyvia builds on the complementary skills of Renault Group and Plug Power and will target a 30% market share in hydrogen powered light commercial vehicles in Europe by 2030.”
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