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Hyundai in partnership with Chevron-Texaco has opened a hydrogen fuel pumping station in Chino, CA.
Hyundai Motor Group said yesterday that it set up its first hydrogen fueling station at its technical center in Chino, California.
The station, unveiled in a partnership with UTC Fuel Cells and ChevronTexaco, produces 15 kilograms of hydrogen per day from natural gas, and has the capacity to charge 30 cars a day, taking less than two minutes to fill each vehicle, Hyundai said in a statement.
Hyundai’s hydrogen station is the first to be completed under a five-year Hydrogen Fleet and Infrastructure Demonstration Validation Program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy.
This is really great to see Hyundai getting involved in the development of hydrogen fuel cell technology. However, is this technology pratical? This is what Hyundai is trying to find out.
Over the next five years, the automotive group plans to operate 16 Hyundai Tucson and 16 Kia Sportage hydrogen-electric vehicles in major U.S. cities and build five more hydrogen stations in California and Michigan with the two partners.
Hyundai’s fuel cell car can be started in temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees Celcius, and has a range of 300 kilometers from 80 kilowatts of power.
Hyundai is a leader in adapting fuel cell technology for automotive applications. It joined the California Fuel Cell Car Partnership in 2000 and its first-generation Santa Fe FCEV won awards in 2001 and 2003 at the Michelin Challenge Bibendum, an international competition for alternative energy vehicles.
In 2003, Hyundai and UTC Fuel Cells agreed to collaborate on Hyundai’s second-generation fuel cell vehicles based on the new Tucson and Sportage sport utility vehicle platforms.
I really hope this becomes a pratical technology because I strongly believe the US cannot continue to be dependent on Middle Eastern oil for our huge energy needs. As long as the US is buying large quantities of oil from them, the authoritative regimes in the Middle East will never reform because they don’t need democratization, better education, and more opportunities for their women to create economic development. Oil is easy money for them. Now what will they do if we take away the oil revenues? They have to reform to stay competitive in today’s global economy or get left behind. In the long run someone buying one hydrogen fuel cell car will be better than somebody killing one jihadist.
Plus hydrogen technology will prevent a future confrontation between China and the US for oil due to China’s ever increasing energy needs as they continue their rapid development.
This is good business for Hyundai also because they really appear to be on the cutting edge of developing a technology that will really change the way we live our lives. The last decade the internet was the big invention that changed every day life. I really hope this hydrogen technology will be this decades’ big achievement.
Something I’m really wondering about though is why is Hyundai testing this technology in America and not Korea? The biggest problem with the hydrogen fuel cell technology is finding fueling stations to fill up at. With Korea’s population density creating a few service stations in Seoul would allow a large market of people to buy this car without fears of not being able to fill up. Why doesn’t Hyundai make buses using this technology to replace Korea’s current buses? Implementing this technology in Korea would really clean up the air here. I guess we got to start somewhere. So how soon will we see mass production of this technology? As soon as 2010:
Korea’s largest automaker provided the Ministry of Environment with 50 Click hybrid hatchbacks last October for testing and plans to set up a production line with annual capacity for 300,000 hybrid cars by 2010.
I can’t wait.
11:05 am on May 19th, 2010 1
Hydrogen Fuel is very promising, i only hope that we can mass produce soon enough.`-:
1:00 pm on May 19th, 2010 2
I agree. On both counts.
12:34 am on September 9th, 2010 3
hydrogen fuel is not yet very practical and cost effective today*`;
12:49 am on September 9th, 2010 4
^
Maybe that's why they are further researching and developing it.
2:42 am on September 9th, 2010 5
Every time there is a post about some kind of alternative energy car or some kind of fake hybrid, I yell, "SCAM!"
…because that's exactly what it all is.
The internal combustion engine isn't going away for decades and decades.
The "research" in this post was started 5 years ago. What have we see since? Squat. Korean car makers are still piddling around and thinking about fake hybrids.
All other hybrids, including the Prius, are intentionally crippled and offered at inflated prices to insure they don't really succeed on a large scale.
On the other hand, people have been making perfectly good electric cars at home since the 70s.
Every time this kind of hype comes up, I just want to kick someone in the nuts.
8:01 am on September 9th, 2010 6
@5 chickenhead
I understand your frustration and yes gasoline engines are here to stay for years if not decades. BUT we should still try to come up with reasonable alternatives to gasoline engines for environment, etc etc. If none of that concerns you, just think about Chavez of Columbia and Iran.
11:19 am on September 9th, 2010 7
I'm a fact nazi. Chavez is from Venezuela, not Colombia.
11:52 am on September 9th, 2010 8
John,
Oh… I certainly think we need a reasonable alternative to gasoline… especially in Korea where small, electric commuter cars would be perfect for the majority of city use.
With a high population density, lots of short-distance city commuters, the ability to easily get the population on a campaign, a close government/corporate relationship that can get things done on a large scale, etc., Korea should be THE world leader in electric vehicles… working out the bugs on the local population before exporting to the world.
But. No. They diddle around making the same tired crap as everyone else while bragging that their mild hybrid is some sort of technological leap… as a mild hybrid is a just a way to kludge a large starter motor on an existing drivetrain and claim "green" while charging more money for a car that gets single-digit better mileage under certain driving conditions… but worse mileage than some other engine-only cars.
It's like all the car makers in the world are clueless as to what the public wants and needs.
An example is how this year's Sonata looks like somebody took the sides off the ugliest car in the 60s and meshed it with an uninspired front and back… which is more unique, but uglier, than the last decade of completely bland Korean cars with dumbed-down, not-quite-there styling.
Then Kia comes along and makes the K5 and K7, with the styling everybody wants and the industry is surprised at what a hit it is… unseating the established Sonata in sales.
As a side, if one wants to know what styling features the public wants, just go to a car accessory shop and find what kind of plastic crap people are gluing to their cars… enhanced taillights, vents, better-looking exhaust, etc.
And it isn't just Korea. The last decade of BMW and Mercedes is the same… one big pile of styling crap. It's like all the car manufactures got together and decided to make the basically same model of suck and throw different branding on it.
Finally, I would like to tie this mediocrity of styling to mediocrity in technical innovation with a final few paragraphs… but I have a lunch meeting so I gotta go.
I imagine you all get it.
6:24 pm on September 9th, 2010 9
Most of the hydrogen in the US actually comes from oil, not the hydrolysis of water so you're not really doing anything to save oil. Remember petroleum is a HYDROcarbon, a combination of hydrogen and carbon. I think a better long term solution to our addiction to foreign oil is to develop algae based petroleum, companies such as Sapphire energy, BFS in Spain, Ls9, Solozyme, etc have been working on this. These processes involve heating & placing under pressure algae which forms biopetroleum which can be refined into gasoline, diesel, kerosene, heating oil, and petroleum chemical feedstocks. For the believers in 'global warming' the process is carbon neutral. An area of about 51,000 square km, about the size of Costa Rica would satisfy current global demand. There would not need to be a change in infrastructure or a need to modify current cars. 300 km is not really that much of a range, most cars can go 300 MILES before you need to fill up again. The 'energy crisis' is a big scam as anyone who lived through the phony 'oil shortage' in the 1970's knows.
9:11 pm on September 9th, 2010 10
My 2003 Civic Hybrid gets 45 miles per gallon. I go 500 miles between fill-ups.
10:03 am on September 10th, 2010 11
Glans #10 Let me ask you a question. A hybrid has two motors in it. It seems to me that with two motors then you would have twice the chance of something going wrong with the vehicle. I have some questions if you don't mind answering them as I might buy one in the future. Did you buy the vehicle new or used? Have you had any major problems with your car? Do you know what the reliability rating is for your vehicle? Thanks.
4:19 pm on December 15th, 2010 12
i would love to use hydrogen fuel on my car, this fuel is really nonpolluting but is not yet very available ;`,
5:06 pm on December 15th, 2010 13
Lacey Cook 12, has a geologist discovered hydrogen deposits? Has some entrepeneur drilled a hydrogen well? The way I understand it, you have to get energy from some other source and then you electrolyze dihydrogen monoxide. So your hydrogen car is at least as polluting as that other energy source. The pollution doesn't come out of your tailpipe, but it does come out of the other energy source.
Tom Langley 11, I bought my Civic Hybrid new; Honda had used it to train mechanics, but I was the first consumer to own it. I never had any unusual problem with it until a couple of weeks ago, when a warning light came on. The dealer told me I needed to replace the battery. Lucky for me, I still had a few thousand miles and a few months left on the warranty. Otherwise, parts and labor would have been about $4K.
10:24 pm on December 15th, 2010 14
South Korean car makers now lead the world in fuel efficiency. All those Americans and Japanese who laughed at Korean cars are now getting raw eggs in their faces.