Hyundai ix35 Fuel Cell: the future driven today

This mid-sized SUV is the first hydrogen fuel-cell car that you can buy in the UK, and
emits nothing but water vapour from its exhaust pipe
"No, we don't want them back," says Robin Hayles, special vehicles manager
with Hyundai UK, talking about the companys new ix35 Fuel Cell. And this
unassuming phrase marks one of the most significant advances of this technology in
the UK, with the cars previously available only on test or lease arrangements, mostly
to allied suppliers.
Fuel cells have had more false starts than a 100-metre sprint on bonfire night, but the
theory now is that you can walk into one of Hyundai's 160 UK dealerships and write a
cheque for one of these indubitably 21st century vehicles.
In practice you'd probably find a few raised eyebrows and a lot of I've-got-this-blokehere-who-wants type telephone calls. But you'd get one eventually and, once in
your hands, you could then sell it on to anyone you damn-well please. In fact, with no
ceiling on production, we could all own an ix35 Fuel Cell, assuming we had the
53,105 wherewithal.
Not that this car looks particularly significant. In fact, if you removed the badge and
the body graphics, it looks, inside and out, just like any other ix35 an unassuming,
five-seat SUV.
Power goes to the front wheels via a 134bhp electric motor thats positioned over the
front axle. Plus, theres 5.6kg of hydrogen fuel held in two 700 Bar (10,00psi) tanks
under the boot floor and the rear seat, and a lithium-ion polymer or pouch battery
thats simply huge for a fuel-cell car.
At 24kWh it packs the same punch as the battery in the fully electric Nissan Leaf. By
comparison, the rival Toyota Miraipacks a relatively tiny 1.5kWh nickel-metal hydride
battery andHonda's FCX Clarity has a 14kWh lithium ion battery this Hyundai has
been very conservatively engineered.
Hyundai actually started development work on fuel-cell technology back in 1998 with
a Santa Fe SUV using a 75kW fuel cell, sourced from United Technologies
Corporation. Those early units were robust, powerful and quiet since they used
ambient air pressure rather than a noisy compressor or turbocharger to compress air
into the cell.

That refinement influenced the direction of Hyundai's research, and while this ix35
uses Hyundai's own 100kW in-house-designed fuel cell, it blows air into the cell
rather than compresses it, so noise levels are low.
Last year, Sae Hoon Kim, Hyundai's most senior engineer on the project countered a
flippant remark from Audi about how easy it was to make fuel cells by saying: "Its not
easy. There are a lot of components: a motor, inverter, fuel cell, battery and the
hydrogen storage system. Its a power plant and there are a lot of different industries
involved. We have around 300 first and second tier suppliers for the ix35 and if
demand really goes mad were going to need at least two tier-two suppliers for each
component. Fuel cells are not simple, or easy.
Nor are they cheap, especially the hydrogen storage. Toyota makes its own 700-bar
tanks for the Mirai, and although Hyundai currently uses expensive Dynatek units, it
is working on developing its own tanks, too.
Last time we drove the ix35 Fuel Cell it was a rough, unprepared prototype. This is
the real McCoy, however, fresh off the boat at Tilbury, and Hyundai allowed us free
reign to drive it wherever. We chose to start on a fiendish, undulating road through
Sussex, with blind crests, broken edges and potholes. Under a canopy of mistshrouded trees burnished with autumn gold, this was a lovely drive indeed.

There are several modes of operation, not all of which are immediately obvious. In
Drive the fuel-cell stack provides electricity to move the vehicle, while lift-off braking
regenerates the battery charge and the battery provides a little bit of extra power to
augment the fuel cell when you floor it.
Eco restricts the power, reduces the air-con effort and allows the vehicle to roll
instead of activating the regenerative braking.
By contrast, Low increases the regenerative braking effect and almost imperceptibly
increases the motor's torque.
You can also select Power Charge Mode, which diverts some of the fuel cell's
current to charge up the battery, although this seems completely surplus to
requirements.

For most applications there's more than enough grunt, but you have to remember that
after 60mph the torque from the electric motor falls off with all the glide of a grand
piano, and the battery isn't really helping much.
On one overtaking manoeuvre, even in Low, we started running out of power halfway
through; our rear-seat passenger might have squeaked.
During the return journey, using the motorway, the ix35 Fuel Cell cruised respectably
at 70mph, although fuel consumption suffered. Speed is the killer of range, and with
just a handful of hydrogen filling stations in the UK, its worth bearing in mind that if
you run out of juice there's less than a mile of limp-home capacity in the battery.
Exhaust that, and you need a diagnostic computer to restart the car.
Other things they don't tell you are that fuel costs about 11 per kg, almost one third
more than the wholesale price, and if too many hydrogen cars fill up at the same
station, the pressure drops so you won't get a full tank.
UK's first zero-emission hydrogen filling station opens
At 1.8 tonnes, the ix35 Fuel Cell weighs about 100kg more than the standard ix35,
which was recently superseded by the acclaimed Tucson. It's a heavy car, then, yet it
rides well, even on a challenging route like the one we chose, giving a confidence at
the wheel and good passenger comfort while dispelling the horrible side-to-side head
shaking of the prototype.
The steering has a good weight, too, but it lacks linearity, so you never get a brilliant
picture of what the front wheels are up to. And thats an issue, because when you
come to a corner, the ix35 Fuel Cell would rather go straight on; you need to be quite
accurate about placing the car on the road before turns.
In addition, the brakes feel a bit wooden, but they blend regen and friction stopping
very well and are more than powerful enough.
While there are a few sources of renewable hydrogen, most of the estimated 45
million tonnes of annual production is currently used in fertilisers, refining
desulphurisation and the production of ammonia, methanol and hydrochloric acid.
Hyundai's figures suggest that the same amount again would be enough to keep a
fleet of almost 500 million ix35 Fuel Cells on the road doing an average of 10,000
miles a year.

Fuel cells are not the complete answer, nor is this Hyundai the ultimate fuel-cell car,
but it's here, on sale in the UK first, and not at all bad to drive. For those who scoffed
this day would never arrive, get over it.

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