Metallica’s European Tour Showcases Renewable-Energy Big Rigs

Metallica, the band that blazed a trail for thrash metal with rugged guitar riffs and relentless drumbeats, is trying to do something similar for trucks powered by sustainable fuels.

The group, a rock music mainstay since their 1986 hit album “Master of Puppets,” is looking to burnish its bona fides on social issues by using rigs powered by fuels including biomethane and vegetable oil on its European tour this summer.

Working with European truck maker Iveco, the authors of songs including “Battery” and “Fuel” (sample lyric: “Fuel is pumping engines / Burning hard, loose and clean / And I burn, churning my direction / Quench my thirst with gasoline.”) aim to show that sustainable transportation in heavy-duty trucking is possible on European highways dotted with alternative-fuelling stations.

But the trucks’ limitations and the workarounds the band’s logistics providers are undertaking on the meticulously-planned 7,200-mile journey winding through the continent from Sweden to Spain also illustrate how far trucking is from using cleaner fuels in regular operations.

“You have limited options because of the lack of the infrastructure,” said Natasha Highcroft, a director of Suffolk, U.K.-based Transam Trucking, which provides logistics for Metallica and other bands. “We use alternative fuels as and when we can, as much as possible, but until the infrastructure is there it’s very difficult.”

The trucks run on natural gas, vegetable oil, electricity and hydrogen fuel cells, and will be hauling giant video screens, lighting and instruments across nine countries.

The workhorses of Metallica’s tour will be 10 heavy-duty trucks powered by renewable natural gas—such as methane from landfills—and four heavy-duty trucks running on biodiesel or hydrogenated vegetable oil. The trucks, dramatically decked out in Metallica’s fierce logo, can travel about 1,000 miles between refuelling.

Both fuels provide a significant reduction in emissions compared with regular diesel, although emissions experts say they aren’t nearly as clean as battery-electric or hydrogen fuel cell technologies.

The tour was due to kick off this week in Munich, Germany, and over the next two months will cover the continent from Italy and Spain in southern Europe to Denmark and Norway. The longest journey between shows, from Warsaw to Madrid, covers almost 1,800 miles.

Iveco, which is providing the eco-friendly trucks for Metallica’s tour, makes both battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell big-rig engines, the types that governments in Europe and the U.S. are trying to press on truckers as soon as possible. But because of the lack of charging and fuelling stations on the long legs between gigs, the battery-electric and hydrogen trucks will be mostly for promotional use at concerts, said Gerrit Marx , chief executive of the Italian truck maker.

Marx said Iveco wants to highlight that renewable natural gas and hydrogenated vegetable oil are “more available and ready” than batteries and hydrogen while also being “way better than fossil diesel.”

Europe has hundreds of liquefied natural gas and hydrogenated vegetable oil, or HVO, refuelling stations. A representative for British energy major Shell , which is working with Iveco on the tour, said Metallica’s low-carbon journey wouldn’t have been possible even a couple of years ago.

Shell says its customers can access HVO in five European countries and renewable natural gas in Germany and in the Netherlands. That means that when low-carbon options aren’t available, the Iveco trucks will be fuelled with regular LNG and the HVO trucks will be fuelled with regular diesel.

A Shell representative said the Metallica tour will buy carbon credits to offset “unavoidable emissions“ generated by the low-emission trucks.

U.S. companies are also using renewable natural gas and biodiesel to reduce carbon emissions. But trucking specialists say the fuels aren’t available in sufficient quantities to power the world’s fleets, which is why regulators are pushing battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

Trucking executives say the costs of operating those technologies are double or triple those of diesel and that they aren’t workable in a highly-competitive, low-margin industry like trucking.

Lars Stenqvist , chief technology officer at truck maker Volvo Group , said it is important that high-profile performers like Metallica amplify the capabilities of sustainable fuels.

Truckers will only adopt the technology when customers demand it, he said, so “This is music to my ears.”

Former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu delivered a warning to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent during a recent visit to Washington: Already-high airfares will surge if the war in Iran doesn’t end soon.

Sununu, a Republican who represents some of the biggest airlines as president of the industry group Airlines for America, has for weeks sounded the alarm to Trump administration officials about the economic fallout from high jet fuel prices. The war, Sununu has argued, must come to a close soon, or things will get worse.

Administration officials have gotten the message.

Privately, President Trump’s advisers are increasingly worried that Republicans will pay a political price for the rising fuel costs, according to people familiar with the matter. Many of those advisers are eager to end the war, hoping prices will begin to moderate before November’s midterm elections.

The fallout from the U.S.-Israeli attack in late February has slowed traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane, triggering a sharp increase in oil, gasoline and jet-fuel prices.

That means consumers are grappling with high costs ahead of the summer travel season, as they consider vacation plans.

Sixty-three per cent of Americans said they put a great deal or a good amount of blame on Trump for the increase in gas prices, according to a new poll conducted by NPR, PBS and Marist.

More than 8 in 10 Americans said struggles at the gas pump are putting strain on their finances.

Jet-fuel prices roughly doubled in a matter of weeks after the war began, and they have remained high. Airlines have said that will add billions of dollars of additional expenses this year, squeezing profit margins.

U.S. airlines spent more than $5 billion on fuel in March—up 30% from a year earlier, according to government data.

Carriers have been raising ticket prices, hoping to pass the cost along to consumers, and they are culling flights that will no longer make money at higher price levels.

In March, the price of a U.S. domestic round-trip economy ticket rose 21% from a year earlier to $570, according to Airlines Reporting Corp., which tracks travel-agency sales.

So far, airlines have said the higher fares haven’t deterred bookings and they are hoping to recoup more of the fuel-cost increases as the year goes on.

Earlier this week, Trump said the current price of oil is “a very small price to pay for getting rid of a nuclear weapon from people that are really mentally deranged.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that if Iran got a nuclear weapon, the country would have more leverage to keep the strait closed and “make our gas prices like $9 a gallon or $8 a gallon.”

Trump has taken steps in recent days to bring the war to an end. Late Tuesday, the president paused a plan to help guide trapped commercial ships out of the Strait of Hormuz, expressing optimism that a deal could be reached with Iran to end the conflict.

Crude oil prices fell below $100 a barrel on Wednesday, after reports that Iran and the U.S. are working with mediators on a one-page framework to restart negotiations aimed at ending the conflict and opening the strait.

Sununu said Trump administration officials are conscious of the economic fallout from the war: “They get it…and I think that’s why they’re trying to get through the war as fast as they can.”

But he cautioned that it could take months for prices to return to prewar levels.

“Ticket prices won’t go down immediately” after the strait is fully reopened, Sununu said. “You’re looking at elevated ticket prices through the summer and fall because it takes a while for the prices to go down.”

Since the initial U.S.-Israeli attack in late February, Sununu has met in Washington with National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, representatives from the Transportation Department and senior White House officials.

A White House official confirmed that Hassett and Sununu have discussed the effect of increased fuel prices on the airline industry. The official said the conversation touched on how the industry can mitigate the impact of high jet fuel prices on consumers.

“The president and his entire energy team anticipated these short-term disruptions to the global energy markets from Operation Epic Fury and had a plan prepared to mitigate these disruptions,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said, pointing to the administration’s decision to waive a century-old shipping law in a bid to lower the cost of moving oil.

Rogers said the administration is working with industry representatives to “address their concerns, explore potential actions, and inform the president’s policy decisions.”

A Treasury Department spokesman pointed to Bessent’s recent comments on Fox News that the U.S. economy remains strong despite price increases. The spokesman said Treasury officials have met with airline executives, who have reaffirmed strong ticket bookings.

“We’re cognizant that this short-term move up in prices is affecting the American people, but I am also confident, on the other side of this, prices will come down very quickly,” Bessent told Fox News on Monday.

The war has already contributed to one casualty in the industry: Spirit Airlines. Company representatives have said they were forced to close the airline because the sustained surge in jet-fuel prices derailed the company’s plan to emerge from chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Trump administration and Spirit failed to come to an agreement for the company to receive a financial lifeline of as much as $500 million from the federal government.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has argued that the Iran war wasn’t the cause of Spirit’s demise, pointing to the company’s past financial struggles, as well as the Biden administration’s decision to challenge a merger with JetBlue.

Other budget airlines have also turned to the federal government for help since the U.S.-Israeli attack. A group of budget airlines last month sought $2.5 billion in financial assistance to offset higher fuel costs, and they separately wrote to lawmakers asking for relief from certain ticket taxes.

Metallica’s European Tour Showcases Renewable-Energy Big Rigs—And Their Limits

The heavy-metal band is using natural gas and vegetable oil to power its 7,200-mile journey, but filling trucks up on sustainable fuels still has a long way to go

Administration officials have spoken to the airline industry, which has voiced concerns about the rising costs.