Hydrogen continues to be one of the alternatives to conventional electric cars. Some brands have invested more time and resources in their development, highlighting the case of Toyota, which has already presented several generations of the Toyota Mirai and even has a tractor unit with this technology, the Toyota Uno.
It is a great unknown, but it has been in development since 2019, when it began to be used in the port of Los Angeles in a project together with Fenix Marine Services. The objective was to create a UTR that was capable of performing the usual functions of this type of vehicle, but without polluting emissions.
UTRs are used to move heavy loads, which can be up to 54 tons and which, as a general rule, are propelled by diesel engines. Given that they put a lot of effort and are concentrated in very localized places, replacing these types of mechanics with cleaner ones is an important goal.
The Uno was already in the aforementioned port in 2022, completing all its tests successfully and has currently moved to the component distribution center that the brand has in Torrace, California.
Based on the Mirai’s powertrain, but tuned for much higher power and performance to deal with the weights it has to work with, Toyota reports that this development is not just for itself, but that it offers itself as a supplier of these systems. so that other manufacturers can offer hydrogen RTUs.
In fact, the company is already immersed in the development of a new generation that will further increase its performance.
Dallas Fox, a Toyota engineer, explained: “The results of these improvements will be a much more capable version of the hydrogen-powered UTR, bringing it closer to matching, or in some cases even surpassing, the performance of combustion propulsion systems. whom it will eventually replace.”