Less than two weeks remain before the announcement of Green Car Journal’s 2014 Green Car Technology of the Year Award at the 2014 Washington Auto Show.
Green Car technology has come a long way from smaller engines and hybrid electric vehicles. This year’s developments in the field have been stunning, beating our expectations of what a green car can be. The 2014 Green Car Technology of the Year Award winner has yet to be announced, but we have been considering the nominees, including developments by Dodge, Porsche, Mazda, Honda, Ford, Cadillac, BMW, Audi, and Acura. Today, we’ll consider the last of ten nominees for the honor, the Hyundai ix35 Fuel Cell Vehicle (FCV), which has been in in-house development for over ten years.
In November, Hyundai started rolling out the ix35 FCV, the first production hydrogen fuel cell vehicle in the world. According to Hyundai, this particular green car technology is the first to make its way out of the science project stage and into full production…
The Hyundai ix35 FCV is the first to go to mass-production, in spite of big claims by other manufacturers to bring FCVs to market by 2015 or 2017. Unlike conventional electric vehicles, which store electricity chemically in a lithium-ion battery pack, the hydrogen fuel cell generates electricity on-demand from an onboard supply of hydrogen. One benefit is a lighter overall system. Another benefit is the ability to refuel in about the same amount of time as a conventional vehicle, whereas a battery electric vehicle requires between thirty minutes and four hours, at best, to recharge. The Hyundai ix35 FCV has a range of 369 miles on one full tank of hydrogen. By 2015, Hyundai plans on following up with the Tucson iX FCV, with even better capabilities.
Image © Hyundai
To bad they use high pressure hydrogen storage instead of hydrate storage.
http://www.horizonfuelcell.com/#!transport-solutions/cmiq