- A fleet of five XCIENT FCEV trucks will enter a real-world demonstration programme in 2022
- Each hydrogen fuel cell truck in operation will save 50ton* of C02 per year
Yesterday Hyundai New Zealand unloaded the nation’s first hydrogen-powered truck, the XCIENT FCEV (Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle) at the Port of Auckland.
This truck is road-ready, and with a reliable hydrogen supply on tap through Ports of Auckland, it was able to be driven to our Mt Wellington headquarters yesterday.
This is the first of five trucks which we will see on the nation’s roads next year running freight across the country in a real world demonstration within commercial fleets. New Zealand is just the second market outside Korea to commence a multiple truck program. The XCIENT Fuel Cell trucks in Switzerland are in commercial operation. Their fleet has now exceeded more than 2 million kilometres of regular commercial service.
The XCIENT Fuel Cell truck has a manufacturer gross vehicle weight (GVW) of 28 tonnes and a combined gross combination weight of 42 tonnes. It will operate lower than this here due to our New Zealand road weight limitations, however it illustrates the genuine heavy duty nature of this truck.
Hyundai New Zealand, a NZ-owned company, has secured the trucks from Hyundai Motor Company, with the help of funding from ECCA, to put them into a working demonstration program. The aim is to speed up adoption by helping industry, government and the public grow in confidence to use hydrogen powered trucks.
Hyundai New Zealand will work with local partners in the freight sector to determine where the trucks will operate regionally. This demonstration will give insights into how the trucks fit into timetables, capacity, maintenance schedules, refuelling, drivability and user-training specific to New Zealand.
The trucks will be introduced into an on-road (in-service) demonstration program with specialists in heavy vehicle transport and road transport logistics. Those partners are still to be confirmed.
They will be fueled by our own hydrogen refueller until the first group of hydrogen refueling stations are available, which are well underway.
The XCIENT is powered by a 350kw electric motor with 2237Nm of torque. Driving energy is provided by a 180kW hydrogen Fuel Cell system with dual 90kW Fuel Cell stacks combined with a 72kWh battery. Seven tanks make a combined storage capacity of about 32.09kg of hydrogen. The range is about 400km – the driving distance between Auckland and Palmerston North.
The arrival is an exciting milestone – New Zealand is now at the forefront of international efforts to shift heavy vehicle transport to zero emission formats. Each XCIENT Fuel Cell vehicle on our road in place of a diesel truck will save *50 tonnes of C02 per year from being emitted into our environment
“As a Kiwi owned company, we are big believers of implementing alternative fuel technology here in NZ. We have championed this through the introduction of NZ’s first hydrogen-powered SUV, NEXO, in 2019. Now with the XCIENT FCEV, we have an opportunity to help fast track the large scale adoption of alternative green fuels in the New Zealand road freight sector,” says Andy Sinclair, Hyundai New Zealand General Manager.
“We’re fortunate as a local distributor to have a strong working relationship with Hyundai Motor Company, who acknowledge and support our hydrogen ambitions. Hyundai Motor Company anticipated the future potential of hydrogen fuel cells at an early stage, and we have been able to benefit from that.”
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