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Hyundai: Hydrogen fuel cell SUV ready for mass production

By | December 22, 2010, 5:16 AM PST

Korean automaker Hyundai said Wednesday that it plans to mass produce a hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicle in 2015.

The company said that it has completed development on its next-gen Tucson ix Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle. The Tucson ix has a 100-kilowatt fuel cell system and two hydrogen storage tanks. The Tucson can also go 650 kilometers on one charge—about the equivalent of a gas-powered auto.

That range is a 76 percent improvement over the previous Tucson fuel-cell car, which logged 370 kilometers on a charge.

What Hyundai’s spec sheet shows is solid progress on shrinking the fuel cell system and improving range. Hyundai, which participated in a hydrogen fuel cell demonstration program by the U.S. Department of Energy, said it will produce 48 Tucson ix vehicles to be used by the Korean government.

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Larry Dignan

About Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan is editor-in-chief of SmartPlanet.

Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan

Editor-in-Chief

Larry Dignan is editor-in-chief of SmartPlanet and ZDNet. He is also editorial director of TechRepublic. Previously, he was an editor at eWeek, Baseline and CNET News. He has written for WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, New York Times and Financial Planning. He holds degrees from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Delaware. He is based in New York but resides in Pennsylvania.

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Larry Dignan

Larry Dignan
Larry Dignan does not hold any investments in the companies he covers.
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+1 Vote
+ -
How about they produce them in 2011?
What's the hold up? By then even GM will have something similar.
Posted by kaneb80
22nd Dec 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Hyundai: Hydrogen fuel cell SUV ready for mass production
where can I get H2 gas? Isn't a 700bar container dangerous?
Posted by ljlafleur
22nd Dec 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
You'll need to go 650 km to find fuel
I'll just pop over to the hydrogen station. See ya in a couple of days!
Posted by JimboNobody
22nd Dec 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Hyundai: Hydrogen fuel cell SUV ready for mass production
These cars will be wonderful as soon as we figure out how to break the law of physics which states that it takes as much energy to break a hydrogen bond as will be released when we recombine the hydrogen in a fuel cell. Everyone is treating the free hydrogen the way a city-dweller considers the source of food: it comes from grocery stores. People talk about the lack of "hydrogen stations" while kicking down the road the problem of where the stations get the hydrogen, and the fact that somewhere somebody has to be burning as much energy to get the hydrogen separated from whatever it's bound to, as will be produced by the fuel cell in the car. The car may be "emission free," but the hydrogen plant won't be.
Posted by Robert Hahn
22nd Dec 2010
-1 Votes
+ -
RE: Hyundai: Hydrogen fuel cell SUV ready for mass production
Yep, he is right! Hydrogen is just another form of energy storage. The advantage is that it can be charged up by just about any primary energy source, including all the renewable ones plus Nuclear, so you don't "have" to burn Hydrocarbons to make Hydrogen! The big problem is moving the Hydrogen around after it is made, but then again it can be "made" just about anywhere and in any quantity you need and stored on-site till used, because the Electricity you need to make it, already has a pretty good transmission system!
Posted by leopards
22nd Dec 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Hyundai: Hydrogen fuel cell SUV ready for mass production
Hydrogen is abundant in nature but it is not free and my guess is,
this is going to be more expensive than the existing energy matrix
we are used to.
Nowadays we have many options for generating electricity, but
still a shortage of ways to store it and made them available for
running our gadgets. Maybe, one of the solutions will be to use
whatever excess we may generate without burning fossil fuels
and store it through some sort of hydrogen capture technology.
Naturally, for that to be doable, it should be safe and have
reasons for doing it.
If everybody assemble a grid of solar panels in their back yard or
on their house's roof, a lot of extra electricity will be generated.
Some of them could be immediately bought by the regular utility
companies in some states, but excesses would have nowhere to
go because we lack a good battery system to hold them.
Hydrogen generation/packing could be the solution.
Posted by FuzzyIce
22nd Dec 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
Accurate Perception
Wouldnt a hydrogen fuel tank cause quite an explosion in a rupture or have they designed it similar to the casing of a nuclear bomb to stop it "accidentally" going off when dropped out the sky?

Will it make movies more accurate in the fact that they really will launch 20ft in to the sky when the fuel tank blows, as opposed to the moden day perception of current fuel tanks which shouldn't!
Posted by ITManx
23rd Dec 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Hyundai: Hydrogen fuel cell SUV ready for mass production
Hate to burst Hyundai's Hydrogen bubble but until there are at least 4 hydrogen fueling stations in every city in the US and new Hydrocars price is $10,000.. less than 1% of car drivers in US or worldwide will be interested. As of October 2009, Fortune magazine estimated the cost of producing the Honda Clarity at $300,000 per car.[32] (wikipedia). Not in my lifetime, i don't thing so, in 2015 Hyundai will talk about 2020 Hydrocar mass production.

ff
Posted by ffinder-cy
23rd Dec 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
RE: Hyundai: Hydrogen fuel cell SUV ready for mass production
Er..100 klowatts? I think not.

That is a unit of continuous power not energy content. What your readers need to know is the energy delivered by the car's fuel cells when fed with one tankful of hydrogen. Maybe 100 kilowatt-hours?

Sloppy journalism ONCE AGAIN?
Posted by cosserat@...
23rd Dec 2010
+1 Vote
+ -
want one!
im hanging on to my spectra until 2015 so i can get a kia fcv ! go s. korea. go h2!
Posted by jabailo1
27th Dec 2010
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