Hyundai Motor Group is calling hydrogen as a top energy solution for sustainability. With the launch of its new fuel cell system that it plans to launch within the next few years, the car manufacturer said it will provide hydrogen fuel cell varients for all its commercial vehicles by 2028.
Hyundai announced its strategy for the future of hydrogen on Tuesday during a live stream of the automaker’s Hydrogen Wave conference. Saehoon Kim, executive vice president and head of the fuel cell center at Hyundai Motor Group, said Hyundai’s goal is to also achieve cost competitiveness comparable to that of EV batteries by 2030.
The South Korean company also announced a high-performance, rear-wheel drive hydrogen sports car, the Vision FK, with a 500kW fuel cell system that can push it from 0 to 100 kilometers per hour in under four seconds and has 600 kilometers (373 miles) of range. Details are unclear whether the vehicle will go into production or if like many automakers who have explored hydrogen cars, the vision will remain a prototype pipe dram.
Times are changing as car companies across the globe push into EVs for both passenger and commercial use, hydrogen is still a bit of a niche market, but one that is growing as Europe, China and the United States set ambitious carbon emissions reductions goals. Hyundai is splitting its bets on both electric and hydrogen, perhaps preemptively looking at the looming question of the environmental cost of EV battery disposal.
Hyundai currently already has one hydrogen fuel cell vehicle on the market already, a passenger bus with 115 already on the roads of South Korea. The company plans to introduce it’s next model by 2023 edging closer to its goal to make hydrogen fuel cells mainstream by 2040 and become fully carbon neutral by 2045.
Source: TechCrunch
