Keep Your Fuel, Keep Your Fire, It’s Green Trucks Metallica Desires

The biggest touring band on the planet is changing how their gear gets from place to place, as Metallica opts to use electric and hydrogen fuel cell powered big rigs moving forward. Starting this summer during the European leg of their M72 World Tour, the band will use Italian truck maker Iveco’s vehicles moving forward.

According to The Cool Down, both Metallica and Iveco actually began their partnership last year. It’s only now that the band will be able to implement a mix of the company’s battery-electric and hydrogen fuel-cell models as their entire fleet moving forward.

While this is great for their carbon footprint and the environment in general, this is also going to save Metallica a boat load of money on fuel costs, as hydrogen fuel cells are reportedly 2.5 times more efficient than gas engines. Electric vehicles also save significant money compared to fueling at the pump — the only caveat is the time requirement to recharge.

With this switch from fossil fuels, Metallica becomes one of the earliest adopters of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) at such a large scale on the planet. Iveco Group CEO Gerrit Marx said the partnership with Metallica stemmed from the fact that the band wanted to reduce its carbon footprint without sacrificing their extensive touring schedule, according to Semafor.

“Everywhere they have concerts, we can engage together on sustainability.”

Jalopnik reports that through their partnership, Iveco is providing Metallica with the following vehicles:

• EV models of the company’s S-Way trucks, called S-eWay trucks, which have a range of 311 miles before needing to be recharged;
• S-Way LNG trucks that use liquefied natural gas, but have a 994 mile range;
• The latest FCEVs from Iveco, which typically have a range of nearly 500 miles;
• The band will also rely on Iveco’s EV minibus as their shuttles during concerts.

Given how much fuel is spent moving such huge productions all over the world, it’s great to see a band make the switch to more environmentally-friendly options. We’ve seen Metallica listed as one of the worst offenders when it came to their carbon emissions, so it’s good to see this change.