Another Major Car Maker Is Backing Hydrogen20 Feb 2020 19:58
The hydrogen fuel cell market has a serious player emerging in South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Corp., which is jumping into the hydrogen truck market to compete with Nikola, Toyota, and Tesla's Cybertruck and Semi.
Hyundai and Yeosu Gwangyang Port Corp. hydrogen fuel-cell trucks in South Korea. An agreement between the automaker and the port operator includes the development and demonstration of hydrogen fuel-cell trucks for logistics transportation and building out a hydrogen fueling station.
The commercial fuel-cell trucks will be put in operation to cover the 320-kilometer (199-mile) round-trip route connecting Gwangyang Port and Busan. Yeosu Gwangyang will provide a site for the construction of the hydrogen refueling station by 2022.
Hyundai plans to introduce two hydrogen trucks for logistics transportation by 2023, and then will eventually add 10 more models.
Hyundai’s efforts are being supported by the South Korean government’s embrace of hydrogen vehicles. The automaker recently hyundai-on-track-to-become-world-s-top-seller-of-hydrogen-powered-cars the fuel-cell powertrains, and expects to produce up to 40,000 fuel-cell vehicles, including semi trucks; by 2030, the company expects to produce 700,000 fuel cell systems annually. Hyundai said that about 500,000 of those systems would be for personal or commercial use, with the rest available for heavy equipment such as forklifts and vessels, and later more being produced for drones and other applications.
Last fall, Hyundai introduced us-truck-market-with-neptune-fuel-cell-concept during the North American Commercial Vehicle Show in Atlanta. One was the HDC-6 Neptune Concept Class 8 heavy-duty truck. The company’s trailer manufacturer subsidiary Hyundai Translead announced the launch of its new, clean energy refrigerated concept trailer, the HT Nitro ThermoTech. The company said that its future offering of the tractor-trailer combination illustrates its corporate vision for wide-spread deployment of hydrogen-powered fuel cell technology, company representatives explained.
Toyota Motor Corp. has made inroads to hydrogen trucks in test projects in Japan, while startup Nikola continues to make contracts for its hydrogen commercial trucks and announced plans to enter the pickup market with its Badger launch.
Along with its Mirai fuel cell sedan, Toyota has been testing fuel cell commercial trucks with partners in Japan; and that’s been carried over to the US. The company has been testing a hydrogen fuel cell yard truck that moving shipping containers within the Port of Los Angeles. The company also entered a project with truck maker Kenworth to build 10 zero-emission Class 8 trucks. They’ll be supported by the California Air Resources Board’s Zero and Near-Zero Emissions Freight Facilities grant, and these trucks will be used at the harbor complex for the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Nikola Motors has made the automotive and transportation sectors take fuel cell comme