Hyundai Shows New Tucson ix35 HFC EV; Production by 2012

In brief: Hyundai has unveiled it's Tucson ix35 Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV) at the Geneva Motor Show, showing significant improvements over previous iterations of the Tucson FCEV.

Vehicle in the news

Make/Model: Tucson ix35 Hydrogen FCEV
Manufacturer: Hyundai

The word

The latest version of Hyudai's fuel cell Tucson includes several updates and innovations. Hyundai plans to have production numbering in the thousands by 2012.

Improvements include the adoption of metallic separators in the fuel cell stack. These replace graphite as bipolar plates and are easier to manufacture. This reduces costs on the fuel cells.

They've also replaced supercapacitors with a cheaper 21kW Lithium-ion poly battery system, which reduces costs as the LiPoly batteries are already in mass production.

Using an induction motor instead of a permanent magnet-type as also lowered costs, making up for slight efficiency loss. This is also part of an overall modularization process that Hyundai has incorporated to make much of the vehicle cheaper to build.

And so ...

Definitely good news from Hyundai, who may be the first to ring a full-production fuel cell vehicle to market.

Photo credits: Hyundai