Hyundai goes harder on hydrogen, says it should be “powering everything”

Korean automaker and electric vehicle leader Hyundai group has used the technology conference CES 2024 in Las Vegas to showcase an expansion in its controversial hydrogen strategy.

The company has been pushing hydrogen as an alternative to batteries since the launch of its hydrogen fuel cell system in 2020, saying that it now has the highest market share in hydrogen-powered vehicle sales.

However, this may backfire, as most experts agree that green hydrogen has lost the race to fossil fuel free cars, and will more likely be used only in a few fringe cases such as heavy trucks and aviation.

“At Hyundai, we believe that science and humanity are two sides of the same coin; that advanced technology should also make people’s lives better,” said Jay Chang, President and CEO of Hyundai Motor Company.

“Clean hydrogen should be for everyone, powering everything, and available everywhere.”

Hyundai announced the expansion of HTWO – an abbreviation of ‘Hydrogen’ and ‘Humanity’ – it’s brand of fuel cell system into the larger hydrogen value chain business brand. The company says this will encompass production, storage, transportation and usage, as oppose to just usage.

The company projects it will off-take 3 million tonnes of hydrogen per year by 2035. However, it notes that this will not be used just in hydrogen cars, instead suggesting its use across green steel production, power generation and clean logistics.

They also announced the use of Waste to Hydrogen and Plastic to Hydrogen initiatives. Waste to Hydrogen uses biogas to form hydrogen, while Plastic to Hydrogen melts plastic at extremely high temperatures to produce graphene and hydrogen gas. This plastic to hydrogen process is on display at the conference, while the waste to hydrogen system is being trialed in Indonesia.

Neither of these methods are zero emissions, and due to the small amount of hydrogen that can be collected, these initiatives are unlikely to make up the bulk of Hyundai’s hydrogen.

Hyundai is looking further than just cars to their hydrogen hopes, potentially because hydrogen is unlikely to be the fuel we use in our cars in the future.

The issue is at least partially due to efficiencies. A UK trial last year found that creating green hydrogen via electrolysis, compressing and storing it, then using it in a fuel cell to power a vehicle has an efficiency of 23 per cent, compared to 69 per cent for an EV.

This means you’d require three times more land area for wind or solar to generate the same amount of energy in your car.

Late last year, Hyundai partnered with Toyota (another company that has rejected EVs in the past) to expand the number of hydrogen refuelling stations in Australia.

These two companies are the only ones who have released hydrogen cars in Australia, with low adoption of the vehicles due to just 10 hydrogen stations situated around the country.