Hyundai/Kia – the Hydrogen push.

Hyundai/Kia expect to be making 1-2,ooo fuel cell vehicles in the next two years, rising to more than 50,000 a year later this decade.

Hyundai and Kia are making huge strides in to the mainstream car buyer’s conscientiousness. They’ve managed – in just a short time – to move from being an almost laughably cheap option for buyers with no money and even less taste to cars that offer serious and credible alternatives the best from Europe and Japan.

So we now think of Hyundai and Kia as a formidable threat to established car makers, but not exactly innovators and pioneers. But look a bit deeper and you’ll soon discover that Hyundai/Kia are ahead of the crowd in one very important area of future car development – hydrogen fuel cells.

Kia introduced their last fuel cell car at Los Angeles two years ago – The Kia Borrego FCEV – which offered more than most fuel cell cars at the time. It had a sensible range of over 450 miles, 0-60mph in under 12 seconds and 100mph, whilst offering the equivalent of over 65mpg. And now they’re almost ready for the next step.

Within the next eighteen months Hyundai/Kia will launch a new FCEV based on an existing production model. The plan is to produce 1-2,000 cars a year for the next few years – to be leased to companies and authorities for evaluation – before proper production of 10,000 plus starts by 2015.

Hyundai/Kia say they have reduced the fuel stack cost by 90% in recent years and Hyundai plans to have the cheapest hydrogen fuel cell car in production. The target is 50,000 vehicles a year and a price at sub £35k.

Which makes far more sense than BEVs.