Hyundai Assembling Fuel Cell Tucsons For Mass Production

Derek Kreindler
by Derek Kreindler

As one of the big dissenters from the battery-powered EV lovetrain, Hyundai is about to put its money on Hydrogen Fuel Cell technology. Starting in 2015, it intends to assemble up to 10,000 units of a fuel cell-powered version of the Tucson crossover at its plant in Ulsan, South Korea.

While EVs have grabbed a lot of media attention lately, fuel cells have made a slow comeback at manufacturers like Daimler, Volkswagen, Ford, Toyota and BMW. Even Renault-Nissan is in on it.

One Hyundai officially we spoke to gave a few reasons for the company’s decision to pursue hydrogen fuel cells rather than battery-powered EVs. According to him, hydrogen powertrains are easy to scale to nearly any vehicle size, whereas EV batteries “have a logarithmic function between range, performance cost and vehicle size.” A battery with increased range is much heavier, costlier and takes longer to refuel. Fuel cells on the other hand, don’t have that problem, and take roughly 9-10 minutes to “refuel”, while range is typically around 400 miles.

Hyundai has also apparently reached a point where cost reduction and economies of scale are making fuel cells viable for the mass market. The next step will of course be the infrastructure Their internal research shows that fueling stations need to be within 5 miles of one’s home to be viable, and the question of who will chip in to help build that network (government, private corporations or private-public partnerships) is still up in the air on a larger scale – but Hyundai and the U.S. government recently announced a partnership to help advance the network of hydrogen stations across America.

Derek Kreindler
Derek Kreindler

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  • Sirwired Sirwired on May 22, 2013

    I've never understood Hydrogen vehicles at all. They combine the worst parts of both electrical and gasoline vehicles in one utterly impractical package. 1) The most common way to generate Hydrogen is to process... Hydrocarbons (a.k.a. Fossil Fuels) Hardly an improvement. 2) The "greenest" way to generate Hydrogen is by electrolyzing water. This is horribly energy-inefficient and to be practical would require nearly-free electricity. 3) Either method requires the generated gas to then be compressed, which causes even more energy waste. 4) The energy density of Hydrogen gas, by volume, sucks. (One mole of H2 gets you one third the amount of energy as Natural Gas, and it's not nearly as easy to store H2.) 5) H2 leaks like crazy because the molecules are so damn small. When we actually start deploying fusion plants, decades in the future, if ever, THEN come to me with dreams of H2-powered cars. Before then, don't waste my time.

    • NMGOM NMGOM on May 22, 2013

      sirwired... Sorry that I am wasting your time. Please see my comments to "HerrKaLeun" and "jpolicke" above. (^_^).. -------------

  • Luke42 Luke42 on May 22, 2013

    Good luck with that. I'll be in line waiting for an affordable Tesla if anything actually materializes from the fuel camp.

  • Doctor olds Doctor olds on May 22, 2013

    Fuel cells are really just another form of battery that can be "recharged" quickly and has much higher energy mass density than batteries. They are still EVs and utilize most all of the architecture of EVs like Volt and Leaf. Costs are still very high. Not long ago, $30,000 was considered a breakthrough in cost reduction, which is aggressively ongoing. Refueling infrastructure is the necessary enabler for widespread acceptance, but at $1,000,000+ per filling station, we have a "pulling yourself up by your bootsraps" problem. Vehicle makers can't sell many because there are only a handful of refueling stations. Fuel suppliers can't justify building stations without a population of vehicles to require them. In 2008, GM estimated that $15B in national infrastructure investment for hydrogen fuel stations would create sort of a critical mass that would enable commercial viability of FC vehicles. FCs take the vehicle out of the tailpipe emissions issue with nothing by water vapor released.

  • Juniper Juniper on May 22, 2013

    Completely agree H2 is the fuel of the distant future. However, if you don't start, the future looks just like the present, or worse. Also, it is currently being used industrially as the best option. Google Hydrogen Powered Fork Lift.

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