A nice looking van with well-known genes, the H2X Darling is both.
Yesterday, Toyota announced that they will focus their hydrogen efforts on the commercial vehicle world. Hydrogen has many pitfalls, but the Japanese brand still believes in it on the scale at which trucks and vans operate. An electric hydrogen-powered Toyota van could therefore happen.
H2X
He immediately has a competitor. This is the H2X Darling. That company might ring a bell if you paid close attention two years ago. Then we wrote about the Warrego pickup. That was a big promise at the time, although the cynic just sees a Ford Ranger with a different nose.
![](https://www.autoblog.nl/files/2023/10/h2x-darling-van-003.jpg)
The Darling is something unique. A unique design with its own face. Even then, a relatively unknown company is of course a lot of hot air at first. But H2X has more strings to their bow, which is indeed a pun. You get it right away.
Cooperation
The H2X Darling is not just a H2X project. The other player is KTM. You can know them from their motorcycles, but since 2013 also from a car, the X-Bow (pronounced crossbow, crossbow, do you get it now?). That started as a circuit toy with a number plate without a windshield and roof. The Austrian company still produces the X-Bow as the GT2 and GT-XR, the latter of which is still street legal.
![](https://www.autoblog.nl/files/2022/09/KTM-6-7-9-2022-2.jpg)
Then a van suddenly becomes a completely different project. KTM will therefore mainly concern itself with the matters that make the H2X Darling a car, or in this case a van. KTM helps H2X make feather-light yet strong aluminum body parts. Saving weight is something you can trust KTM with.
Origami
Furthermore, H2X will keep the specifications of the hydrogen drive between them and KTM for a while. However, the company is very pleased with their ‘Origami architecture’. This means that they can offer the Darling in multiple sizes on one platform and even as a single cabin with room for a box structure or pickup structure on the back. Where do we know that from? Oh yes, every van of today.
![](https://www.autoblog.nl/files/2023/10/h2x-darling-van-001.jpg)
Anyway, it’s a cool thing and with KTM you have a well-known name on board, so this Austrian-Australian collaboration (which gets confusing in English) sounds promising. As you can tell, we are looking at renders, because there is no prototype yet. H2X believes that a ‘major supplier’ has been found to build the vans, which will happen soon. We don’t know when.
This article This cool van is a sweetheart with a crossbow first appeared on Autoblog.nl.
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