Hyundai NEXO review – DrivingElectric

I don't like the idea of hydrogen powering an electric system. I hate electric cars. This is too close for comfort.

You carry out a range test of just about every EV you review but not the Nexo? Why was that?

Hmmm looks like 19 years life before replacing the fuel tanks.....still better than the batteries in this or any other al electric cars. But still not as long, on average, of the good 'ol petrol or diesel tanks, with no batteries, en masse, or tanks with expiry dates.

Hydrogen price, hydrogen source are the turnoffs for now. A good vehicle and Canbe a good source of energy if taken seriously and on large scales. As quoted here the fill up price was v high. So ppl won't buy much of these.
Electric cars have an edge here.

There need to be more PHV's that use fuel cells. Then people could buy them outside of areas that have a hydrogen infrastructure and still use them for short commutes before they build the stations.

I think battery cars are a cul de sac, nothing like as eco friendly as we are being led to believe and that fuel cells are a much better long term solution.

Hydrogen cheap in india

666 km in India. Great hyundai

£80 for 400 miles vs £10 charge at home for Tesla 400 miles........

Love your presenting style and reviews. One of my favourite channels currently 👍

Great car, however £80 to fill the tank is ridiculously expensive. How comes you didn't do a 0-60 test drive?

Better stay with diesel

Do you know when the Jeep Renegade PHEV is launched and can you please review it?

Interesting car. I agree that at the moment it is not that practical. Most hydrogen currently comes from natural gas producing carbon and hydrogen. The way to view hydrogen is that in 10 years it will be produced by water hydrolysis using very cheap solar power in North Africa and the ME and transported in liquified form in the same way as LNG is now or piped under the Med to Europe. Alternatively, offshore wind electricity may become cheap enough to use. It will be used as an energy storage form in the same way as batteries and fuel cells will be used to release the energy. Much will depend on the cost curve compared to other forms of electricity storage.

Norway, a paragon of environmentally friendly car legislation closed their hydrogen filling stations after two spectacular explosions. So no thanks to hydrogen tanks pressurised to 10K psi! Also, those tanks have an expiry date!! (inside of filler flap) So they degrade, which is scary and will make your older hydrogen vehicle very difficult to sell.

Sorry but this has almost all the inconveniences of ICE vehicles. Going to filing stations? Paying tons of cash to refill? Fund mining and extracting companies? That's so old fashioned, I'm surprised the big oil companies didn't invest more in hydrogen. Sure it has no tailpipe emissions but that's about it. With a BEV, you just go in your driveway, plug it in and forget about it, all while using cleaner and cleaner energy and while funding your local energy company or government. Here in Quebec (Canada), we have 98% hydro made by a gvnt owned company which also invests massively in local infrastructures and creates thousands of jobs. Win-Win for the BEV if you ask me...

The main thing that was not mentioned in the video is that the tailpipe emits a corrosive substance that can also cause death by asphyxiation!

Save the planet or save your wallet?

No mention of the source-to-wheel inefficiency of hydrogen? The fact that most hydrogen available for cars is produced by steam reforming natural gas, which has a carbon footprint? The fact that is is actually quite a dangerous thing when/if things go wrong? Not to mention the fact that we would still have to go to a fuel station (owned by mostly evil corporations) to fill up our own car.


The Hyundai Nexo may be a great car. It's unfortunate it's not a BEV. Hydrogen has no future for cars. It might for some other purposes, but not for cars! This should have made clear in this video.

Why didn’t they make Kona look like this? What a waste. £80 for 400 miles? 10000 psi pressure in the tank?! Get this 💩 of the road. No wonder the world is going electric.

The interior looks quite nice

No mention of how much electricity was used to extract the hydrogen in the first place – which is more than you would use to power most electric cars more than 400 miles in the first place, sorry the logic defies me!

Hydrogen IS the future not electric

Hydrogen fuel cell cars not practical, due to fuel infrastructure (or lack thereof)... Not enough fuel stations around, even in "the states." Battery electric is the future...

it is horribly expensive to run

I assume with only a small battery the overall weight of the car is on par with an ICE version

in my opinion hydrogen cars are DOA.

This does not compute! Not environmentally friendly. A bomb on wheels. Uneconomic to buy and run. Hydrogen is energy poor as a source of power. Thanks for the honest review.( Don't park on a blind bend in the middle of the road. Please.)

£80 to go 400 miles? I don't see this catching on...

I really don’t get the point of a hydrogen car. It made sense when EV’s charging rates were terrible. They aren’t any more, it’s a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. Also extremely expensive to run. Yes costs will come down, but not enough

a lot of people commented here are not considering stuff like the government subsidies, tax benefits, environment pollution charges, vehicle taxes, inner-city congestion fees, etc. As I'm not a British but an expat in Germany, i don't know the UK system well but at least buying an EV/PHEV/Hydrogen car (i believe mild hybrid is not eligible) in Korea, you can get a lot of subsidies from central and regional government (eligible to apply both separately) which can be up to around 20,000 USD (depends on the energy efficiency, original price, region, etc and used to be even more before), no VAT, no vehicle registration fee, no vehicle tax, 50% discount for highway toll and private parking areas, 100% free for public parking areas, free to charge (thou hydrogen charging stations are still way too limited), etc. More and more countries are adopting such systems to encourage/enforce greener vehicle sales like how Norway has been doing. I wouldn't say NEXO is more energy efficient (when accounting the energy usage for producing hydrogen and high-pressurising) or right direction of future vehicle than conventional EV, especially for non-commercial size vehicle. HOWEVER, when considering all the other variable cost factors aside from original price tag, it certainly is NOT expensive as you think in a long run.

I'm not a hyundai fan nor ever have owned one. Currently own a Merc C350e wagon but i would def consider Hyundai hydrogen model for my next car if the infrastructures are sufficient and more government regulations or increasing tax on fossil fuel to prohibit/discourage owning a conventional engined car or even PHEV (with something like 2L turbo petrol engine + a motor (recuperative with a tiny battery pack).

If they can bring down the price of the hydrogen fuel and make sure it’s renewably sources while pricing them and making them publicly viable, then they’re better than battery powered vehicles full stop. But otherwise...well

WHY?

Saying it’s not Hyundai’s fault that there is no hydrogen infrastructure is like them saying “We’ve built this concept car that runs on badgers. If only the badger supply infrastructure was better developed in the UK this would be perfect.” It is a concept car, technology demonstrator and no doubt, in some parts of the world, a compliance vehicle. Your comment about “chicken and egg” is spot on, but the hydrogen infrastructure needs to be provided from non fossil fuel sources, otherwise the ‘green’ rationale for these vehicles is rendered moot.

So the Nexo costs £66,000 and £80 to drive 400 miles. Where's the real world advantage when the car is more expensive to buy, the hydrogen is more expensive than petrol and 4-10 times more expensive than electricity and you can't drive anywhere you want to?

It's also heavier than equivalent BEVs - the Hyundai Nexo weighs 1814kg and the similarly sized Tesla Model 3 SR+ weighs 1611kg and Kia e-Niro weighs 1737kg.


The only theoretical advantage of Hydrogen left - faster refueling - has become redundant when the Tesla Model 3 SR+ can be charged up 170kW adding 120 miles of motorway speed driving in 15 minutes. That's at professional driver safe rest limits for long distances and more than sufficient for long distance travel including food, toilet and rest stops. Fast charging is no longer a real world limitation on long range EVs like Teslas, Kona or e-Niro.

BEVs and Tesla in particular have evolved so quickly that the theoretical advantages of Hydrogen for passenger vehicles has been removed and all that's left is cars that are more expensive to buy and drive with less performance (Nexo is 0-100 in 9.2 seconds, 2 sec behind Kona, 3.5 sec behind Model 3).

Too slow to market. Have Tesla killed the Hydrogen car?

I can't stop looking at the steering wheel. I really like it.
If this were a Toyota, they'd just order the interior parts from Fisher Price and spray paint it black and gloss black.

And if there is a leak the whole city square goes on flames...

Well equipped!

They are way less efficient than battery electric and the filling stations cost millions. Hydrogen is simply not viable for cars.

Really important to know from where the hydrogen is sourced. The fact is that most commercial hydrogen comes from fossil fuel, not electrolysis of water. It is no wonder the fossil fuel industry is so keen on promoting hydrogen fuel cells as the way forward while spreading FUD about EVs.

expensive to run. electric battery more economical and kona better car for half the price

So it’s expensive and 💩

Filling up is so 2010.

That hoover noise is horrendous.

Wonderful to see progress like this. Should it be called H2brid?

All electric vehicles are the future.
Hydrogen vehicles are NOT.

£80 to fill up for 400 miles range?! That is so expensive!