Nexo blast

The big motoring news at this week’s Fieldays in Hamilton was Hyundai New Zealand’s reveal of its hydrogen SUV, the Nexo, that is due to go on sale here.

It will be the first hydrogen passenger vehicle for sale in New Zealand but after the reaction to it at the Wednesday unveiling I’m sure other brands such as Toyota will be fast-tracking plans to import such product.

The Nexo is Hyundai Motor Company’s second-generation of commercialised fuel cell electric vehicle; it’s a first for New Zealand.

The Nexo has an on-board electric motor that produces 120kW of power and 395Nm of torque drawing power from an under-bonnet fuel cell stack. This combines oxygen from the surrounding air with hydrogen from the SUV’s high-pressure storage tanks.

The result is electricity to power the motor and charge the battery.

With full tanks of hydrogen on board, Nexo is capable of travelling 660km before it needs to refuel.

This takes just a few minutes. Not only does the Nexo produce zero emissions but also has an advanced air purification system which filters 99.9 per cent of very fine dust (PM2.5), emitting only water and clean air into the environment.

After the Nexo reveal on Wednesday we checked out the other motoring brands’ sites and overheard Fieldays visitors at three vehicle stands asking when they were bringing in their own hydrogen vehicle.

But before any hydrogen passenger vehicle can hit our roads, there need to be filling stations.

Unlike Europe and California where public ones are aplenty, we are still to set up a customer network. But Ports of Auckland is planning a hydrogen station filling station for vehicles and port equipment.