(Zurich, Switzerland) - Hyundai continues to deliver hydrogen trucks to Switzerland, said Hyundai Hydrogen Mobility AG (HHM). “Neither Hyundai nor the other partners of the hydrogen ecosystem in Switzerland” intended to “stop the existing initiative”.
Last week, media reports caused confusion: “Hyundai stops green H2 trucks,” was the headline on the portal “Eurotransport.de“ and announced an “end” for the “Swiss flagship project”. Accordingly, Hyundai will no longer sell “Xcient Fuel Cell” hydrogen trucks in Switzerland. Contracts “for hydrogen trucks that were very close to delivery” were “cancelled in an instant”.
The HHM business model is based on renting trucks in “Pay Per Use” mode. An individual kilometer flat rate is calculated for the customer. According to HHM, this “takes into account the driver profile, the use of the vehicle and the annual mileage”. The flat rate includes the complete operation of the truck including construction, registration, insurance and tire wear, hydrogen refueling as well as service and maintenance. “HHM bears all risks, not the customer,” it says on their website.
But: “With the extremely fluctuating energy prices, we cannot offer eight-year fixed conditions,” the managing director of Hyundai Switzerland, Beat Hirschi, was quoted as saying on “Eurotransport.de”. The trucks intended for Switzerland and powered by green hydrogen would now be offered for sale in Germany. There they operate with gray hydrogen, but they still benefit from “extremely high levels of government funding”.
In the course of a statement from the company entitled “Correction” last Friday, it was stated that the “unforeseeable upheavals” in the energy market had “an impact on the availability of electricity from sustainable energy sources in the short and medium term and thus also on the production costs of green hydrogen out of". All players in the joint venture between the Korean Hyundai Motor Company and the Swiss company H2019 Energy, which was founded in June 2, “still stuck to the goals, pushed for further expansion and developed solutions to adapt the overall system to the new situation.” Hydrogen production capacities would be further expanded and a new production facility would be put into operation in eastern Switzerland before the end of the year. “Expansion in other European countries is continuing as planned.”
By 2025, 1.600 Xcients are expected to be in operation in Switzerland
Just a few days earlier, Zurich-based HHM had covered five million in Swiss hydrogen vehicles 
kilometers celebrated. The 20 operators of the Xcient Fuel Cell fuel cell trucks would have saved more than 4.000 tons of CO2.
Be the original ones Corporate plans If the plan continues, there will be around 2023 of the “Xcient” on Swiss roads by 1.000 and around 2025 by 1.600. In Germany Hyundai announced in August that companies from the areas of logistics, production and trade would add 27 vehicles to their fleet. The Dachser logistics group wants to test seven of these trucks from 2023.
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Hyundai says it wants to continue delivering hydrogen trucks to Switzerland. © Hyundai Motor Group
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20 companies in Switzerland covered a cumulative total of five million kilometers with the “Xcient Fuel Cell”. © Hyundai Motor Group
