Hyundai Motor said on Wednesday it will sell 1,000 hydrogen-powered trucks in Switzerland over the next five years through a new tie-up, betting the vehicles could beat battery-powered models sold by the likes of Tesla Inc. South Korea's Hyundai and Japan's Toyota are among a handful of car makers doubling down on hydrogen vehicles amid an intensifying global race to develop greener technologies to replace combustion engines, as regulators around the world crack down on emissions.
The deal, which will double Hyundai's hydrogen vehicle sales, marks its latest push into a technology that has lagged battery electric vehicles. Hyundai, whose profits have tumbled due to a heavy reliance on low-demand sedans, hopes to burnish its brand image by taking the lead in hydrogen cars.
On Wednesday, Hyundai said in a statement it will partner with Swiss hydrogen company H2 Energy and fuel cell operators to provide 1,000 hydrogen trucks in the country after launching at the end of 2019 what it says will be the world's first commercial hydrogen trucks. It did not provide any financial details. The launch timeline is ahead of battery-powered trucks Tesla and Daimler plan to introduce in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
Hyundai announced a partnership with Audi in June to share each other's hydrogen car technology and components to bring down production costs and make the technology profitable. For long-haul, hydrogen trucks have a huge advantage over battery rivals as heavy batteries can reduce cargo capacity and require longer charging times, Mark Freymueller, a commercial vehicle director at Hyundai Motor, told Reuters. Hyundai said its hydrogen trucks are expected to deliver a single-fueling travel range of around 400 kilometres.
"We are not planning just purely 1,000 vehicles and then stop the business... We expect that much more is coming afterwards," he said, adding Hyundai would look at launching it in the United States, China and other European countries.
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