650 kWh battery plus fuel cell: Finnish 68-tonne truck tests electricity and hydrogen
Finland's VTT research centre is sending a test truck on a 540 km daily route. It runs on its battery and recharges it on the road with a fuel cell.
Symbolic image · Photo: Kahvilokki / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Finland's VTT Technical Research Centre presented a test truck on 21 October that runs mainly on electricity and carries hydrogen only as a backup. According to VTT, the "SISU Escalate" built by Sisu Auto has a 650 kilowatt-hour battery from battery maker IONCOR. It also has a fuel cell with a maximum output of 120 kilowatts. The fuel cell is meant to recharge the battery on long trips when no charging point is nearby. Because of the hydrogen tanks and the large battery pack, the chassis is longer than that of a typical tractor unit.
In the trial, VTT says the truck will drive 540 kilometres a day between Vuosaari harbour in Helsinki and Jyväskylä in central Finland. Its gross combination weight is capped at 68 tonnes. It charges at both ends of the route, with Kempower supplying megawatt charging (MCS) equipment. Another megawatt-scale station is planned along the way. Jyväskylä has Finland's first hydrogen filling station. Over six months the researchers will collect data on energy use and reliability, partly with a digital twin. Haulier Jylhä Logistics will start running the truck in normal transport operations in late 2026.
No production model is planned. "The SISU Escalate truck is not a product that will be launched in the market," said Sisu's head of development, Petri Kananen. The truck is part of the EU's ESCALATE project, in which 37 partners from 13 countries are testing four trucks across Europe. VTT says heavy-duty vehicles produce about a quarter of CO₂ emissions from road transport in the EU. The vehicle will be shown at European Hydrogen Week in Brussels from 26 to 30 October.