Metallica surprises the audience by using a big rig powered by hydrogen and electricity for a new tour in 2024

The legendary heavy metal band wants to use eco-friendly EV and FCEV large vehicles to reduce their carbon footprints.

An odd alliance between Iveco and Metallica is responsible for a fleet of large trucks that will travel this summer as part of the band’s M72 World Tour’s European leg, running on batteries and hydrogen fuel cells. When the Italian heavy truck manufacturer and the American heavy metal band announced their partnership for the first time last year, Iveco commemorated the occasion by revealing a limited-edition livery that the trucks would use while touring nine key European cities, according to the Cool Down.

According to Semafor, a combination of battery-electric and hydrogen fuel-cell models make up the trucks that transport Metallica’s equipment around Europe. As a result, Metallica is now among the most prominent and early users of FCEVs. It seems that carbon emissions are the only thing Metallica detests more than file-sharing. According to Semafor:

Part of the legendary metal band’s equipment will be transported on hydrogen fuel cell-powered trucks during their summer tour of Europe. According to Gerrit Marx, CEO of the Italian truck maker Iveco Group, which is building specially made low-carbon trucks for the tour, the band is eager to reduce the carbon impact of its tours. “Everywhere they have concerts, we can engage together on sustainability,” Marx said.

Metallica has joined the ranks of those who support hydrogen, a fuel that is contentious and whose worldwide supply is now almost entirely derived from fossil fuels. This partnership with Iveco might someday be crucial to the shift to clean energy. Marx addressed me on stage at the Baker Hughes annual conference in Florence, Italy, where he was joined by some of the largest global investors in hydrogen. They said that the first step towards achieving hydrogen’s green goals is to ignore the fuel’s manufacturing process for the time being. Instead, they are pursuing every potential customer, from metal bands to steel factories, in an effort to grow the sector with the hope that hydrogen will someday be a viable countermeasure to climate change due to declining costs associated with carbon capture and renewable energy sources.