April 19, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] South Korea’s largest automaker Hyundai Motor has joined hands with global auto peers and oil giants to promote the use of hydrogen-based technologies in an effort to reduce emissions and air pollution, the automaker said on Jan. 18.

In the first global initiative of its kind, Hydrogen Council was launched on Jan. 17 during the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with members including Hyundai Motor, Toyota, Honda, BMW, Daimler, oil and gas companies Royal Dutch Shell, Air Liquide, Linde Group, miner Anglo American, electric utility firm Engie, rail company Alstom and motorcycle manufacturer Kawasaki Heavy Industries. 

The council, headed by Toyota and Air Liquid for the first two years, aims to achieve the ambitious goal of keeping the global temperature rise this century below 2 degrees Celsius as agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement. It plans to pour investments to develop and commercialize the hydrogen segment, as well as work with policymakers to accelerate the commercialization of fuel cell vehicles.

“We need governments to back hydrogen with actions of their own -- for example through large-scale infrastructure investment schemes. Our call today to world leaders is to commit to hydrogen so that together we can meet our shared climate ambitions and give further traction to the emerging hydrogen ecosystem,” Benoit Potier, CEO of Air Liquide, said in a statement.

“Beginning in 1990, automakers have pushed fuel cell vehicles as the next powertrain and started developing them. After 20 years, we are getting ready to commercialize fuel cell vehicles,” Yang Woong-chul, vice chairman of Hyundai Motor Group, was quoted as saying at the forum.

“But in order to commercialize the fuel cell vehicles, we need participation from different industries as the automakers cannot achieve the goal by themselves.”

Yang also highlighted Hyundai’s fuel cell drive, with plans to launch its fuel cell SUV in 2018 during the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

By Ahn Sung-mi (sahn@heraldcorp.com)