Hyundai Nexo

Sometimes you sit in a car and think, “Hey, hardly anyone gets to ride, let alone drive a hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicle”. It’s kind of true. Bit then I remember that several years ago, I hopped into a Hyundai ix35 taxi in Paris that was one of a fleet of 65 fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) trundling around the French capital. You trundle in Paris, you see, the traffic is not very fast. Except, weirdly, at roundabouts.

Anyway, the real point is that despite the Hyundai Nexo being quite exclusive in Australia, thousands upon thousands of Parisians rode in Hyundai’s vision of the future – or at least one of them – in the form of hydrogen fuel cell propulsion. So this is a technology that works and works well enough that in the car’s home country of South Korea, 10,000 Nexos have been sold. They’re also on sale in California and the UK.

People are not on board with hydrogen, believing that battery electric vehicles are the only way forward. It does seem kind of weird that a car company that has demonstrated in the last couple of decades that it kinda knows what it’s doing would waste millions of dollars designing and building an FCEV, but I think I know why: While battery electric vehicles are good, they’re not as flexible as some use cases require.

Pricing and Features

In Australia, the Nexo is not on sale through the Hyundai dealer network. Basically, unless you’re a state or territory government, you probably can’t take up the lease deal Hyundai is offering these large organisations because you need to know what you’re getting yourself into when you buy one.

There are no hydrogen filling stations outside of Hyundai’s Sydney HQ, the ACTEW AGL filling station in the ACT, BOC’s in Brisbane and Toyota’s in Altona West. So even if you could afford it, you’re out of luck for filling options. But that is – genuinely – not the point of this review.

Likely priced at something above $120,000, the Nexo ships with 19-inch alloys, LED headlights, around-view cameras, remote parking assist (you can use the key fob to slot the car in and out of tight spaces), fake leather interior, panoramic glass sunroof, eight-speaker Krell-branded stereo system, power tailgate, dual-zone climate control, heated and ventilated electrically-operated front seats and heated rear seats. There isn’t a spare tyre because there isn’t any room, so you get a tyre repair kit instead.

The huge 12.3-inch touchscreen complements the 7.0-inch digital dashboard and has Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity via USB as well as wireless phone charging. The software also includes a handy diagram of where the power is flowing to and from but shows one hydrogen tank too few, which is weird. Not that it matters, of course.

Comfort and space

The Nexo feels like a slightly bigger Tucson, partly because it is slightly bigger than the Tucson. The interior space feels very conventional because, despite the different storage needs of the fuel itself, there's a battery under the boot floor, hydrogen tanks safely stowed around the rear axle and a fuel cell and electric motor under the bonnet.

Even with the underfloor battery, the boot is a commendable 461 litres and has a floor flush with the high-ish loading lip. You can drop the back seats and that delivers a probably-not-VDA 1600 litres. Either way, there’s a lot of space.

Return the rear seats to their rightful position and you have plenty of leg and knee room. Even with the sunroof fitted there is ample headroom, too, so this is a proper four-adult proposition. Given its role in Australia as a government fleet car, that’s going to be handy.

Hyundai even expects interest from emergency services, such is the size and space of the Nexo. The rear doors have bottle holders and pockets while the centre armrest will hold two cups, which probably isn’t relevant to an ambulance operator, but still. Just in case.

The front seats are split by Hyundai’s flying bridge console. While we first saw it here in Australia in the Palisade and then Santa Fe, the Nexo was the first Hyundai with this feature. It’s a feature I quite like because there’s space for slinging small items and keeping cables out of sight.

The front seats are very comfortable and just the right kind of firm for long trips. I wasn’t sure about the pale colour of the upholstery but it certainly made the interior feel brighter and bigger. As one interested fellow at a lunch stop said, “My kids would destroy that beautiful white interior. But it’s nice.”

Even if you could afford it, you’re out of luck for filling options. But that is – genuinely – not the point of this review.

On the road

There’s a bit to get through on the engine front, so feel free to skip a few paragraphs where I get down to business. If you don’t know what a fuel cell is, it’s basically a process where hydrogen passes from its pressurised storage tank and through a membrane where it reacts with oxygen.

As the oxygen and hydrogen meet, sparks (metaphorically) fly and the result is electricity, a little residual heat and the exhaust is, er water. Drinkable, apparently, but I skipped that stunt because I know what water tastes like.

The fuel cell and electric motor are arranged in a stack under the bonnet known as the Powertrain Fuel Cell (PFC). Total system power from the battery and the fuel cell is a combined 135kW. 95kW comes from the fuel cell and a further 40kW from the 1.56kWh lithium-polymer battery. The electric motor itself spins up 120kW and 395Nm and behaves exactly as an electric motor does in an EV.

The three hydrogen tanks swallow up to 156 litres of hydrogen at 700 bar (10,000psi) of pressure. Unfortunately, Hyundai’s Sydney fueller can’t quite match that, so we only had half a tank to play with. With those three tanks arranged around the rear axle, at full capacity there is 6.3kg of hydrogen.

As you may remember, hydrogen is very light, so that’s why you need so much pressure to cram it all in. At the moment hydrogen is around $15/kg, meaning a fill price of around $90. That will get you around 666km on the WLTP cycle, which is more accurate than the ADR combined cycle and Hyundai is notable for not getting greedy with its testing.

The Federal Government wants hydrogen at $2/kg at some unspecified point in the future, so that fits in with the general malaise in energy policy we’ve come to expect. The ACTEW filling station does provide the necessary pressure and filling time is around five minutes, so not much longer than a conventional petrol or diesel fill and much shorter than an EV, 350kW charging or not.

It’s important to note that while hydrogen’s tailpipe emissions are fundamentally harmless, the way hydrogen is extracted – or from what it is extracted – will decide whether it’s clean energy or not. You may have heard of some controversy around so-called blue hydrogen, which is derived from methane in natural gas which is, as you’re probably aware, a fossil fuel.

A peer-reviewed paper found that not only is the carbon footprint of blue hydrogen a fifth higher than just burning the methane itself but the production itself produces yet more carbon dioxide. Producers say they will capture and store this CO2, but that particular technology is dodgy at best.

The car’s hydrogen tanks themselves are super-chunky, with three protective layers dealing with stress, impact and shock absorption. The multi-link rear suspension allows for the third tank, where the ix35 had a torsion beam set-up.

The tanks are new, too, and can cram more in, just over half a kilo over the old car. The Nexo’s motor is a permanent magnet (ix35 was an AC induction unit) and the company says power density is up by half, to 3.1kW per litre. Motor power is up by 20kW and torque by a whopping 95Nm.

Right. That’s a lot of fascinating if nerdy detail. How does it drive?

Rather well, as it happens. The electric motor is like any other EV as long as you’re not in Eco mode. Foot down, forward motion, no messing about. It’s front-wheel drive, so expect a few chirps if you’re unsympathetic in slippery conditions. The 0-100km/h time isn’t all that inspiring at 9.5 seconds, but it redeems itself with excellent rolling acceleration for fuss-free overtakes or getaways from rubber-neckers.

Most of the time you hear nothing but well-damped tyre rumble and the occasional thunk from the suspension. As speeds rise you’ll hear wind noise and you have to remind yourself that this is because it’s electric. Hyundai has fitted thicker glass in the windscreen and front doors to help and it seems to work.

You know it’s a Hyundai too with its pushy lane-keep assist system making the wheel writhe in your hands (easily fixed with a button press) and it’s fully equipped with safety gear, which is nice to see.

The steering is pretty numb, sadly, despite Hyundai Australia’s local team working on the chassis. Like its Tucson stablemate, the Nexo handles tidily and the 1800kg kerb weight doesn’t feel too apparent until you get a little too ambitious.

I quite liked the way it rode, too, and it improved as speeds rose. It’s a very easy car to live with and the only reason you’re reminded it’s an FCEV is a distant huffing and puffing of the fuel tanks when you ask for more power.

Apart from that, it feels like a capable mid-sized SUV. For that alone, it stands apart from other EVs because most of them feel so different to drive due to the huge weight penalty of batteries, the lower centre of gravity and the walloping performance most of them deliver.

Most of the time you hear nothing but well-damped tyre rumble. As speeds rise you’ll hear wind noise and you have to remind yourself that it’s electric.

Ownership

Like every other Hyundai, the Nexo is subject to a five-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty.

The rest of the costs are obscured in the lease deal Hyundai offers its (so far) government customers.

VERDICT

After a week driving the Nexo and having fascinating chats with passers-by, I was surprised to find that people were interested and even keen on the idea of a hydrogen-powered car. While there are quite a few obstacles in the way – not least of which is the rapid development of the competitor technology – I can tell you that a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is a perfectly acceptable alternative to a battery-electric car.

I think people are attracted by the familiarity of filling up at the currently non-existent filling stations. That’s the real problem common to any FCEV. Infrastructure is not forthcoming, with a very small patchwork of filling stations, most of which are ideas at this point.

Hyundai seems undaunted and where hydrogen is really going to make sense was the subject of a recent announcement – heavy vehicles. As Tesla is shortly to discover, trucking companies are not going to be keen to find their payload is greatly reduced by heavy batteries.

As with the Nexo, fuel cell technology is significantly lighter than battery electric. It’s going to be a fascinating few years.