Hyundai to export 27 XCIENT fuel-cell heavy-duty trucks to Germany
Hyundai Motor Company will export 27 units of its XCIENT fuel-cell heavy-duty trucks to Germany, which is Europe's biggest commercial vehicle market. These eco-friendly buses will be used by seven German companies in logistics, manufacturing and retail and will be a part of their fleet service with government-backed funding. The funding program encourages usage of sustainable drive systems as well as infrastructure development of refueling or charging infrastructure across the country.
With this, Hyundai has entered the German commercial vehicle market and aims top further expand its business into the wider European commercial vehicle market. “We are glad to now also officially enter the German commercial vehicle market with our heavy-duty fuel cell electric truck. (We) will leverage this opportunity to expand our business into the wider European market," said Mark Freymueller, Senior Vice President and Head of Commercial Vehicle Business Innovation of Hyundai Motor Company.
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The seven German companies that will be deploying the fuel-cell trucks from Hyundai had initially applied for the funding and successfully received approval from BMDV. In August last year, BMDV had rolled out its funding guidelines for commercial vehicles with alternative drive systems upon approval by the European Commission.
The government funding is available for battery, fuel cell and hybrid electric vehicles, corresponding to refueling/charging infrastructure and related feasibility studies. A budget of 1.6 billion euros has been made available until 2024 to purchase these eco-friendly commercial vehicles.
Hyundai Motor has already deployed 47 units of its XCIENT fuel-cell in Switzerland where they have accumulated over four million kilometers in driving as of July this year.
The Hyundai XCIENT fuel-cell trucks come equipped with a 180-kW hydrogen fuel-cell system with two 90-kW fuel-cell stacks. The 350-kW e-motor offers maximum torque of 2,237 Nm and enables dynamic driving performance.
