Hyundai this year debuted the commercialized version of its Class 8 XCIENT Fuel Cell Truck. We spoke with Martin Zeilinger, head of the commercial vehicle development tech unit at Hyundai Motor Group, to learn about this truck's specs and its unique features. What we learned: This is not the first fuel cell electric vehicle Hyundai has made.
In this video
00:00 - The Hyundai Class 8 XCIENT Fuel Cell Truck00:26 - What Is the Class 8 XCIENT Fuel Cell Truck?
01:01 - Commercial Debut
01:23 Spec Overview
02:31 - What Is Unique About This Truck?
03:19 - Rider Impressions
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Here's everything you need to know about the Hyundai Class 8 XCIENT Fuel Cell truck, including an in cab driving experience and real impressions from a test rider. This video was filmed at the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo. For more coverage from this show, make sure to subscribe and click the notification bell so you don't miss another video.
Martin Zeilinger (00:26):
I'm Martin Zeilinger. I'm the head of the commercial vehicle, LCMTU. LCM stands for Lifecycle Management and it's R&D, and purchasing, and quality. The XCIENT is our family of heavy duty trucks, so we have a broad variety in the diesel world. And then we converted that truck in 2020 to a fuel cell driven version and we first launched it in Switzerland in Europe and then went to Korea. And now finally we are ready to go here to the US with that specific tractor version.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
At ACT Expo 2023 Hyundai debuted the commercialized model of its Class 8 XCIENT Fuel Cell truck.
Martin Zeilinger (01:09):
We are ready for production but we are carefully watching the hydrogen infrastructure, because customers would never be happy without having a sufficient supply of the necessary energy, which is hydrogen.
(01:26)The range in this version is, right now, 450 miles, even if fully loaded. We have 10 tanks on it, which are adding to 68 kilograms of hydrogen. If some customer would request more, we technically can put more tanks on it. So we have now two rows of it. We could technically add another row, adding 50% more. So that's not a technical limitation, because it's modularity, because of the single cylinders. But what we have chosen for the start is 10 tank. So the power is 350 kilowatts and it's 1,650 foot pound on the electric engine. It depends not only on the truck, it also depends on the hydrogen refueling station. Its size, its compressor power, its buffer tank power. Typically, our target to achieve soon is 30 minutes, but technically it could be even shorter if we customize that solution to the real commercial vehicle needs.
(02:34)What we want to say is the fuel cell system is a Hyundai system. It's not purchased from anywhere. So we have a value chain really vertically integrated, because I think other OEMs are more having purchase systems. We have a big, big, big experience in fuel cell technology from passenger cars and then we adopted it to the commercial way you could use, so we are running more than 330 fuel cell electric city buses in Korea. So the specifics is we have a lot of real experience in our company for commercial vehicles.
(03:12)We believe in hydrogen and fuel cell technology and we think in that application for heavy duty long haul it's the right thing.
Greg Holley (03:22):
Hello, I'm Greg Holley, and I work for Pratt Logistics, LLC, based out of Conyers, Georgia. We have a private fleet of about 630 tractors and right about 700 drivers. Really impressed, quiet truck, very smooth. With the driver driving, you could tell the truck was very torquey, a lot of power. Six speed, so not a lot of gears. Really impressive ride. Being old school, like the cab over trucks. Hydrogen, I think, is going to be part of our future. I think it helps us get to the zero emissions quicker. Just got to get the infrastructure for the hydrogen, but that's why I chose this Hyundai truck over some of the others.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
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