Paris (AFP)
The hydrogen taxi company Hype announced on Tuesday the acquisition of a Parisian incumbent operator, the Slota group, thanks to a fundraising of 80 million euros.
"The fleet of 600 diesel vehicles operated today by Slota will be gradually replaced by Toyota Mirai - fuel cell sedans - and will be operated by Hype," the group said in a statement.
HysetCo, the company founded by hydrogen pioneers and which oversees Hype, has raised 80 million euros from RGreen Invest, Mirova, RAISE Impact and Eiffel Investment Group funds.
Air Liquide, already a partner of HysetCo and producer of hydrogen, has stepped up its commitments, bringing investments in HysetCo to 100 million euros.
With this "world's largest fleet of hydrogen taxis", Hype "seeks to prove that the hydrogen ecosystem makes sense," Loïc Voisin, president of HysetCo, told AFP.
The company had managed a hundred taxis since its creation in 2015. It is now entering a phase of "industrialization" with the acquisition of "one of the major players in the Parisian taxi", Slota, founded in 1932, and passed under control of the Naxicap fund in 2012.
The Hype service has been discontinued due to the pandemic.
Its return to the streets will be "depending on the pace of economic activity recovery", with the idea of soon deploying a dedicated application, said Loïc Voisin.
This fundraising will also allow the construction of new charging stations: to the four existing ones will be added two new ones with the support of public funds, on a site of the City of Paris Porte de Saint-Cloud, and at Slota at Porte de la Chapelle, with an electrolyser that will produce hydrogen.
HysetCo plans to operate around twenty hydrogen stations by the end of 2024, which could be opened to motorists potentially attracted by this low-emission energy and allowing great autonomy.
Will the hydrogen in taxis be "gray", obtained from fossil fuels, or "green", produced by electrolysis?
"Our goal is to eventually use green or certified low carbon hydrogen", said Loïc Voisin.
Toyota, which has just launched its second generation of Mirai, is also a shareholder in HysetCo, alongside Caisse des Dépôts, the energy group Idex and the Kouros fund.
© 2021 AFP