Hyundai going BIG on Hydrogen Fuel Cell vehicles – 500k a year by 2030

The Hyundai Group, which includes Kia, is moving towards a hydrogen future in a big way with investment delivering 500,000 FCEVs a year by 2030.

Despite many in the car industry, and elsewhere, believing hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicles are nothing more than an inefficient pipe dream, Hyundai are committed to the technology. And they’re putting their money where their mouth is.

Hyundai Group – which includes Kia – is planning to spend more than £5 billion on fuel cell technology development, and is expecting a global market for FCEVs to hit two million a year by 2030, of which Hyundai want a 25 per cent share.

But Hyundai aren’t just looking to put hydrogen fuel cells in to cars, they want to see them in drones, ships and trucks too as well as for power storage and generation, aiming to push production of fuel-cell systems up to 700,000 a year by that 2020 date.

Euisun Chung, Hyundai’s Executive Vice Chairman, said:

Hyundai Motor Group, the global pioneer of the commercial production of FCEV, is taking a bold step forward to expedite the realization of a hydrogen society.

We will expand our role beyond the automotive transportation sector and play a pivotal role in global society’s transition to clean energy by helping make hydrogen an economically viable energy source. We are confident that hydrogen power will transcend the transportation sector and become a leading global economic success.

The more than £5 billion investment in a hydrogen future will see Hyundai invest in R&D and facility expansion, creating more than 50,000 jobs in the process, and has already broken ground on its second fuel-cell system plant in South Korea.