You can, by selling only 40,000 units of a car, achieve the title of best-seller worldwide. To do this, you simply need to enter the hydrogen car market, where few manufacturers have risked entering. In South Korea, Hyundai has been marketing the Nexo for seven years, a family SUV that, like the Toyota Mirai, promotes the possibility of driving "green" while offering fill-ups of only 5 minutes. During the career of its first generation, the Nexo indeed won the title of "green car" best-selling hydrogen vehicle in the world, with only 40,000 units sold.
Seven years later, a new hydrogen-powered Hyundai Nexo
For 2025, Hyundai is renewing its appeal for the engine with a second generation of the hydrogen-powered SUV. It has a more assertive style, with better interior space (the 2025 Nexo is 8 centimeters longer) and a larger total capacity in its tanks. The SUV will be able to carry 6.69 kg of liquid hydrogen, compared to 6.33 kg until present. This difference will be found in the total autonomy on a full tank, while Hyundai announces that the Nexo 2025 will be able to travel 700 km compared to 666 km on the previous Nexo. We will still have to wait for official measurements, while Hyundai is content with estimates for the moment.
This new hydrogen SUV might seem familiar to some. This is normal, since Hyundai unveiled its lines last year, in the form of a concept. Called Initium, it had already announced aim for 700 km of autonomy thanks to hydrogen power, with a fuel cell. Remember that the system developed by Hyundai follows the principle of the electric car with a range extender, in other words that the drive still comes from an electric motor, connected to a battery (this increases from 1.56 to 2.64 kWh). It is this battery which is recharged, by a generator connected to the fuel cell, itself connected to the hydrogen reserve of the three tanks.
Here are all the technical developments of the new Hyundai Nexo 2025:
- The capacity of the hydrogen tank increases from 6.33 kg to 6.69 kg
- Battery power increases from 40 kW to 80 kW
- Fuel cell power increases from 135 kW to 190 kW
- Electric motor power increases from 163 hp to 204 hp
- Electric motor torque increases from 395 Nm to 350 Nm
- 0 to 100 km/h increases from 9.54 s to 7.8 s
A very expensive and timid market
The fact remains that the hydrogen car market will welcome new competitors in the coming months, such as BMW (iX5 Hydrogen). Honda is also interested, with a CR-V Hydrogen. To be ready, Hyundai is therefore updating its Nexo SUV, and should try to make it more attractive than the Toyota Mirai. Until now, the model was priced at 80,600 euros, or 600 euros more than the Mirai. However, Renault will not be counted on in the market, while its CEO Luca de Meo estimated that in France, "the conditions for it to work are not met." The cause was production, which reached only 0.5% of the initial target for electrolysis capacity in France, estimated at 30 megawatts.
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