Hyundai says hydrogen will play a ‘prominent role’ in going carbon neutral

Hyundai goes all in on essentially the most ample component within the universe within the quest to scale back planet-heating emissions. The South Korean automaker introduced that hydrogen will “play a outstanding position” within the firm’s efforts to go carbon impartial by 2050.

“Clear hydrogen must be for everybody, powering all the pieces, and out there in all places,” Jay Chang, president and CEO of Hyundai Motor Firm, mentioned in a press release.

Because the auto business shifts to electrical automobiles, a small however rising cohort of corporations can be embracing hydrogen gas cell know-how as a part of their plans to eradicate tailpipe emissions. Honda, Toyota, GM, and Hyundai have all detailed plans to fabricate gas cell automobiles, each for particular person and industrial makes use of.

Hyundai isn’t new to hydrogen. The corporate claims to be “on the forefront of the hydrogen momentum,” having mass-produced gas cell electrical automobiles for years. Hyundai says it now has “the world’s highest market share in hydrogen-powered automobile gross sales.”

Hyundai says it’ll use hydrogen within the passenger automobiles, vans, and buses it manufactures, in addition to trams, particular gear, vessels, energy mills, and superior air mobility.

The corporate will spearhead this transition by way of HTWO, the group’s hydrogen gas cell system model, first launched in 2020. Via HTWO, Hyundai tasks that it’s going to offtake 3 million tons of hydrogen per yr by 2035 for logistics, metal manufacturing, and energy technology.

Hydrogen gas cells use compressed hydrogen as their gas, releasing water vapor as its solely emission. One of many largest challenges, although, is the dearth of hydrogen charging and refueling infrastructure, particularly in North America.

Regardless of the know-how having been in growth for many years, there are solely a bit of greater than 50 fueling stations in California, mostly clustered round Los Angeles and the Bay Space. The East Coast is making an attempt to get in on the motion, with a handful of stations up and working and extra within the works in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

Hydrogen’s power content material by quantity is low, which makes storing hydrogen a problem as a result of it requires excessive pressures, low temperatures, or chemical processes to be saved compactly. Overcoming this problem is necessary for light-duty automobiles as a result of they usually have restricted dimension and weight capability for gas storage.

Hyundai can be laying down stakes for its software program growth, asserting a “Software program-Outlined All the things” technique “which goals to remodel all shifting gadgets, fleets and ecosystems into helpful belongings by way of superior software program and AI.”

Other automakers are additionally creating software-defined automobiles as they rush to compete with Tesla, which has come to outline what prospects anticipate from their automobile’s software program. The thought is {that a} automobile is bought with a base stage of {hardware} and that its options are largely dictated by its software program, which will be up to date and improved with over-the-air updates.

Hyundai is the most recent to embrace this transfer. The corporate mentioned it’s transitioning “all the pieces right into a software-defined method, from automobile growth to constructing all the mobility ecosystem.” This entails new approaches to infotainment to incorporate an app library and the event of software program growth kits (SDKs) for builders to create “killer apps.”

And naturally, this can even embrace synthetic intelligence. Hyundai says it’ll combine a big language mannequin into its in-car voice assistant to allow extra naturalistic interactions between automobile and driver. The corporate just lately took a $100 million stake in AI chip producer Tenstorrent to underscore this dedication.