Hyundai’s fuel cell ‘flop’ is big leap forward

Car and Van News, July 16, 2013

Hyundai plans to have around 15 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles operating in London by the end of this year, and 40 or more by the close of 2014.

Through initiatives not only in the capital but across the country, the UK is emerging as a champion of these long-range all-electric cars.

Hyundai recently became the first manufacturer in the world to put a fuel cell car into full production, with plans to build 1,000 hydrogen ix35s by 2015 and another 10,000 cars beyond.

“These are not hand-built prototypes; they are proper series production models,” Hyundai UK CEO Tony Whitehorn tells Headline Auto.

“We have broken the chicken-and-egg cycle as to which should come first – the cars or the infrastructure to support them.”

Fuel cell vehicles (FCEV) are all-electric vehicles making their own electricity on the move through chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen in a metal box known as a fuel stack. They have roughly the same range on a tank of fuel as a conventional petrol/diesel vehicle, but the only waste product is water vapour.

Whitehorn likens the arrival of FCEVs to the introduction of the Fosbury Flop in high jumping. “At the Mexico City Olympics in 1968 Dick Fosbury arrived at the bar head first and backwards – and incidentally won the event,” he says. “Now everybody does the Fosbury Flop. This is our Dick Fosbury moment.”

The take-up of FCEVs in the UK is being encouraged by organisations such as the UK and Scottish Hydrogen Fuel Cell Associations, UK H2 Mobility, the London Hydrogen Partnership and London H2 Network Expansion.

“To establish hydrogen fuel cells you need collaboration between the vehicle manufacturers, the infrastructure companies and government,” says Whitehorn. “That is happening in the UK.”

The aim is to have 300 hydrogen refuelling stations across the UK by 2025 and 1,150 only five years later. The Sainsbury and Morrison supermarket chains recently joined UK H2 Mobility, prompting hopes that they may start to roll out refuelling pumps at their sites.

Forecasters think there could be 10,000 FCEVs in the UK by the end of this decade, with sales increasing by 300,000 a year to a total of 1.6 million by 2030.

The establishment of a refuelling infrastructure is only one obstacle to the widespread take-up of FCEVs, however. The other is cost, which is why Hyundai will lease its initial batch of cars. Currently an FCEV would be priced at the same level as a supercar because the fuel stack is expensive to make, but with economies of scale this would tumble.

“Over the next 18 months we need to look at the cost element and bring down the percentage difference between a fuel cell vehicle and one with an internal combustion engine,” says Whitehorn. “The important thing is that fuel cells are within the reach of private buyers now.”

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