On October 30, Hyundai Motor Company released a hydrogen fuel cell concept car called INITIUM, and plans to launch a mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell car based on this model in the first half of next year.
Although hydrogen fuel vehicles can refuel faster and have a longer range, most studies show that pure electric vehicles are the fastest and cheapest products to reduce emissions from passenger vehicles, and hydrogen fuel systems are considered more suitable for heavy commercial vehicles.
Although the growth rate of demand in the electric vehicle market is slowing, Hyundai Motor CEO Jaehoon Chang told the media that it is only a matter of time before the automotive industry adopts electric systems more widely, and hydrogen-powered vehicles “are not a very profitable product, but anyway, we are pushing it and taking it as a mission.”
Since the launch of Nexo in 2018, Hyundai Motor has been an important supporter of hydrogen fuel vehicles. At its investor day in August this year, Hyundai Motor pledged to invest about $4 billion over the next 10 years to build a hydrogen-based future to achieve net zero emissions by 2045 and achieve carbon neutrality in all stages of production and operations.