Hyundai Motor Company plans to ramp up the US commercial vehicle market entry with XCIENT Fuel Cell trucks. At the 2022 Advanced Clean Transportation (ACT) Expo, Hyundai Motor will share the progress of the NorCAL ZERO Project. Through the project, also known as Zero-Emission Regional Truck Operations with Fuel Cell Electric Truck, Hyundai Motor will deploy 30 Class 8 6x4 XCIENT Fuel Cell heavy-duty tractors at the Port of Oakland, Calif., in 2023.
 

Our ultimate goal is to fight climate change and build a sustainable future. We are running out of time to limit global warming. We believe that there is no way around hydrogen to realize the energy transition towards renewables. And amongst others, it also offers already today a practical and viable solution to decarbonize the heavy-duty commercial vehicle sector providing excellent drive range, payloads and refueling time on our trucks.

—Mark Freymueller, Senior Vice President and Head of Commercial Vehicle Business Innovation at Hyundai Motor Company

Hyundai Motor views hydrogen as the clean energy solution for commercial vehicles, including vocational trucks that require high amount of energy, due to the convenience in production, transportation, distribution and storage.

Hydrogen is an energy carrier with high density which allows fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) to provide sustained energy output suitable for long-haul driving and carrying heavy loads. Fuel cell electric commercial vehicles enhance work efficiency and lower infrastructure cost compared to battery electric vehicles (BEV) by minimizing downtime with shorter refueling time. This has led the company to deploy a growing fleet of XCIENT Fuel Cell trucks, the world’s first mass produced fuel cell electric heavy-duty truck, in Switzerland starting in 2020, which now has achieved a cumulated range of 3.5 million km as of 30 April 2022.

With the US government’s significant investment and more players entering the hydrogen market, the total cost of ownership (TCO) for fuel cell electric vehicles will drop significantly in the coming years, Hyundai says. Climate change and on-going supply chain issues will accelerate the transition to clean energy sources.