Kia is on course to become a world leader in the production of clean hydrogen fuel cell cars within the next few years. The company has pledged to begin small scale production (1,000 a year) of these zero emissions vehicles in 2012, and to make them commercially available at the rate of around 10,000 a year from 2015.

Kia expects to have hydrogen powered cars on the market by 2012, based on successful testing of its Borrego SUV. Cost is still a concern and the company expects that early hydrogen cars will be leased rather than bought due to their high price.

Hydrogen fuel cell cars are powered by electricity, which is created on-board by mixing hydrogen and oxygen in a metal box called a fuel stack. The only waste product is water so pure you can drink it.

Kia, in conjunction with parent company Hyundai, has been working on the technology since 2000. Early problems with cold starting, caused by water freezing in the fuel stack, have been solved. Kia has successfully completed front, side and rear crash-safety tests with fuel cell versions of the Sportage and Borrego. It has also satisfactorily tested cars for fire safety. The outstanding problem is cost. The most complex and costly part of a fuel cell car is the fuel stack.

"Even if we were producing 50,000 fuel cell cars a year, they would currently have to cost $50,000 each," said Mr Byung Ki-Ahn, general manager of the Mabuk-ri site.

For that reason, the first commercially available cars are likely to be leased rather than sold. But Kia is convinced that manufacturing costs will fall, helping to bring down the price of fuel cell vehicles.

The other major issue concerns the absence of a refuelling infrastructure. With only a handful of fuel cell cars on the road, fuel companies are understandably reluctant to invest in places where they can be topped up with hydrogen.

But global demand for oil is expected to continue to rise in the coming years while the cost of hydrogen will fall, making fuel cell cars increasingly attractive. Already, the pre-tax fuel cost per mile of a hydrogen car is half that of one running on petrol.

Mr Ki-Ahn believes Kia is now well on the way to having a fuel cell car that is showroom-ready.

"On a scale of one to 10, I'd say we were at six or seven. Before 2020, many people will be hearing about fuel cell vehicles made by Hyundai-Kia," he said.

Comments (2) »

Retired Traffic Engineer
written by Rick Portegay, August 06, 2009

At this very moment the only thing standing in the wqay of the production of millions of the Hydrogen Fuel Cell car is the lack of infrastructure. Honda has already resolved the manufacturing problems with their "Clarity". The OIL companies need to begin clustering the refueling stations and the auto companies will get more orders than they can handle. It would reenergize the worlds industry base, eend all the economic problems and solve the global pollution all at the same time.

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written by mark, November 26, 2009

all sounds fantastic, but most average people won't be able to afford fuel cell cars until they come down in price. And it's not so good if they can't make the hydrogen from clean fuels. Solar, wind etc. I would rather see battery powered electric cars. The new lipo4 batteries seem to offer fantastic potential for cars. Stable + they can last 2000 or so charge cycles. You could charge them from your own wind or solar system for free, not from hydrogen that you will have to pay for. But I guess auto manufacturers and governments will force the technology on us that they can control the most. They will never allow us any kind of free transport. Another thing battery technology is evolving fast. And car batteries can recharge as fast as 15 mins or so from industrial chargers, say in car parks, supermarkets etc. It would be better in the long run in my opinion to put the vast amounts of energy required to extract the hydrogen into charging batteries. The range of electric cars is up to 100 miles or so now and will improve all the time. And if chargers can charge them in 15 mins or so, with the proper charging infrastructure, it won't be a problem! That's of course if the E.S.B get the finger out!

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