Gassed up Nexo hits Kiwi roads
It’s an EV, but not as we know it. David Linklater drives Hyundai’s Nexo, with hydrogen in the tank and water coming out of the exhaust pipe.
While we’re all still getting to grips with plug-in Battery Electric Vehicles (EVs), big carmakers like Toyota are busy putting the next piece of the zeroemissions motoring puzzle in place with hydrogen power.
Hyundai is the first to get a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle on the road in New Zealand, with two examples of the Nexo SUV (soon to be three as there’s another on the way) now wearing Kiwi number plates. And we’ve had a drive.
Make me an instant expert: what do I need to know?
Hydrogen vehicles are still EVs, but you don’t plug them in. They carry tanks of high-pressure hydrogen, which is mixed with air inside a fuel cell to create a chemical reaction that produces electricity to power the car. Hence the name FCEV: Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle.
The key things about hydrogen from a consumer point of view are that you fill up quickly in a similar way to a petrol or diesel car, rather than ‘‘grazing’’ like you do in a plugin vehicle. And the range is really good. Hyundai says Nexo can be filled from empty in less than six minutes and the WLTP distance-toempty is an impressive 666km. The fun thing is that the only emission is water.
But fuelling is the first problem for New Zealand, because you need a bespoke infrastructure and that doesn’t exist yet. Hyundai NZ has its own private facility for Nexo: a small filling station in Auckland that takes tanks of hydrogen manufactured by gas specialist BOC in Glenbrook, Franklin, south of the city. The station can deliver the hydrogen to the Nexo at the required 700 bar.
Putting that little issue aside for now, hydrogen is as safe as petrol, arguably safer. Nexo has a system of carbon fibre tanks (three totalling 157 litres) that are incredibly strong. Even if one was punctured, the fuel is more likely to dissipate because it’s lighter than air.
Nexo already holds a five-star crash-test rating from EuroNCAP.
Where did you drive it?
Hyundai pulled out all the EV stops for a drive of Ioniq II (more about that soon), Kona Electric and Nexo from Queenstown to Milford Sound return.
We linked up with tourism company Real Journeys, which has moved to Kona Electric models for its support fleet, thanks to help from the Government’s Low Emission Vehicles Contestable Fund.
Vehicles were swapped in and out over the two-day journey, but it was a case of some great open-road driving over typically testing Kiwi tarmac.
For the record, both Nexos covered about 400km on their full tanks and still had more than 90km of range left when we finished. Impressive given that we weren’t exactly driving in an eco frame of mind.
And yes, we’re aware of the irony of the cars being transported up and down the country on the back of diesel trucks. Hey, just think of the bigger picture.
What stands out the most?
It’s an electric vehicle, right? That’s exactly what it feels like to drive.
Nexo has the same silent running, excess of low-end torque and regenerative capabilities (including paddle shifters to adjust the strength of recuperation) as something like a Kona Electric.
Recovered energy goes to a separate 1.56kWh lithium-ion battery, as used in the Ioniq hybrid.
It’s there to provide a boost when needed and fill out the performance picture.
Nexo is not quite as sprightly off the line as a Kona Electric, but it’s also less likely to spin the front wheels in the wet. The steering is a lot more substantial than the plug-in Kona, but the chassis is not as well controlled through bumpy corners and the secondary ride over little ripples is a lot more fussy. That’s probably more down to the Koreanmarket suspension tune.
It’s all in the execution. Nexo is built on a bespoke platform, so it’s significant that Hyundai has chosen to make its first mass-market FCEV a compact SUV.
No point going into too much specification detail for these early cars, except to say that Nexo is lavishly equipped, with all possible driver-assistance systems and even a remote self-parking feature.
The cabin is also bespoke, and features a huge 12.3-inch touchscreen, many (too many you might say) shiny silver buttons and higher-quality finish than your average Hyundai.
No teeny-tiny aero wheels for Nexo, either: glamorous-looking 19-inch alloys are standard.
Why would I buy it?
You can’t right now. Although Nexo is indeed a proper production model, now on sale in many major markets including Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States. In fact, it’s Hyundai’s secondgeneration hydrogen car. The first was the ix35 FCEV, which was available for lease in 2014.
The Nexo markets are all places with some form of hydrogen refuelling infrastructure, which is something we don’t yet have in New Zealand.
Why wouldn’t I buy it?
The capital cost. Even if Nexo was on sale in New Zealand right now, we’d be talking early-adopter-only prices.
Hyundai NZ refuses to talk possible retail cost at this early stage, because there’s no firm timeframe on bringing the car to market.
It will happen, but the final sticker will depend on different factors, from currency exchange rates to production economies of scale as the global market for the car grows.
However, that need not stop us having a guess. In the UK for example, Nexo is priced about 50 per cent higher than the flagship Kona Electric. So we reckon a price of $120,000 would be in the right ballpark . . . right now.
Hyundai NZ general manager Andy Sinclair says: ‘‘Hyundai believes that by 2025, if the range of a fuel-cell electric vehicle exceeds 335km, it will be comparable in price to a Battery Electric Vehicle.’’
The future viability of hydrogen cars in New Zealand really depends on that refuelling infrastructure and establishing a viable pump-price.
Hydrogen works for heavy vehicles in a way that EV power does not: fast fills, big range and little or no compromise to payload.
So it’s likely that hydrogen infrastructure will start there. For example, Ports of Auckland plans to have a filling station operational by the end of next year.
‘‘That [type of] infrastructure has to be rolled out for heavy vehicles, but there’s no reason why you can’t have private cars using it as well,’’ says Sinclair.