The European Commission’s Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU) will use the Hyundai ix35 fuel cell electric vehicle to promote hydrogen fuel cell technology.
As part of the program to highlight real-world driving, between now and March, the fuel cell electric version of the Hyundai ix35 compact SUV will be driven by members of European Parliament, Commissioners, EU officials and other policy makers. Hyundai’s designers at its European base in Russelsheim, Germany, created the regular ix35 which is now a huger seller throughout the world.
Hyundai has already signed a memorandum of understanding with the Danish capital of Copenhagen to establish the required infrastructure to support fuel cell electric vehicle operations in Denmark.
Hyundai’s engineers, working at the company’s dedicated fuel cell research division in Korea, are well down the path towards commercialization of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by 2015. In fact the ix35 being driven by the EU team has a 55 per cent longer driving range than earlier prototypes and – significantly – is some 80 per cent less expensive to produce.
