When will you be able to buy a hydrogen car? Hyundai releases plans for commercializing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles beginning in 2012

(Note: To learn more about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and their potential to solve the oil crisis, please read the series of articles titled “Twelve Hydrogen Facts” which is part of the Hydrogen Manhattan Project.)

I wrote last Friday about the latest announcement from Hyundai/Kia involving hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.  The Kia Borrego hydrogen fuel cell vehicle with a driving range of 426 miles is going to be unveiled at the upcoming Los Angeles auto show.

Here is an interesting excerpt from an entry posted on Hyundai-blog.com late last month about Hyundai’s plans for producing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles:

“According to the latest information we just received, the company will speed up its research and development of fuel cell powered vehicles by investing even more money as it did until now. As a part of this strategy, Hyundai Motor Company announced it plans to unveil a commercial version of its first mass-production hydrogen fuel-cell (FCEV) vehicle by 2012.

In the first year, Hyundai plans to build about 1,000 units and then slowly increase the number each year until it meets the goal of 30,000 units by 2018. In the long term, Hyundai expects initial demand for its FCEV cars to rise to as much as one million units a year by 2030.”

One key point to keep in mind is that it is in the best interest of auto companies to be very conservative about how many hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will be produced.  The reason is that they do not want consumers to stop buying the cars they sell today!  There will be a point when most people decide to just keep their current vehicle until hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are available where they live.

I discussed this issue in detail in “Hydrogen Fact #12 – Many consumers will stop buying cars powered by gasoline as fuel prices continue to rise even further, so car companies will be very motivated to start selling hydrogen cars soon.”

Furthermore, the entry posted on Hyundai-blog says “Hyundai has been developing FCEV cars since 2001.”  However, Toyota started their in-house hydrogen fuel cell program back in 1992!!!

You can put two and two together.  Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will be on the road much sooner than most people think.