Hyundai will have fuel-cell cars on the road

Zero-emission fuel-cell vehicles could be available within five to 10 years, a senior Hyundai research engineer predicts. Sungho Lee, who works in Hyundai’s fuel-cell vehicle research department who was in Australia for the launch of the company’s latest diesel car, believes rising oil prices will accelerate the development of fuel cell infrastructure by governments around the world. Lee’s forecast for the start of commercial fuel-cell vehicle sales is considerably shorter than previous predictions by other leading car companies, who had put the time frame between 10 and 20 years. He says the major barrier to full-scale production of fuel-cell vehicles is not the technology itself but the refueling infrastructure. Hyundai will have a hybrid vehicle in production by next year and a production version of a second-generation fuel-cell vehicle on the streets by 2012. The hybrid vehicle will use a combination of electricity and LPG. (June 7, 2008)