Tesla – love them or hate them, Elon Musk’s unprecedented success in the electric automotive industry has driven his company to lead the industry in new electric innovation – but as time goes on, it becomes clearer and clearer that electric cars cannot (at least for the time being) be sustained if a majority of the population were to use them.
An alternative that was explored back in the 2010-2020 period which marked the take-off of electric car production and usage were hydrogen fuel-cell powered vehicles, or FCEV’s for short.
These cars use a mix of hydrogen gas (supplied as fuel) and dioxygen from the surrounding air which react to produce water vapour, electricity and heat and is therefore a completely clean way of powering these vehicles.
One such vehicle that is, to the joy of many car enthusiasts, about to enter production albeit in extremely limited quantities is the Hyundai N Vision 74 (title picture), an almost DeLorean lookalike which it has been rumoured will be going into production in early 2026.
One of the problems currently facing this new addition to what seems to be an ever-growing list of eco-friendly petrol/diesel alternatives are the running costs – hydrogen fuel is difficult to transport, and unlike traditional electric cars cannot be charged at home or refuelled easily – much like electric cars, the infrastructure to support it just is not in place.
(Image: Hyundai)
Add to that a whopping £284,000 price tag, and suddenly the idea of owning one of these beauties becomes a lot more distant – however there are some cheaper alternatives, namely the Hyundai NEXO and Toyota Mirai, both priced around the £68,000 mark.
With a longer range and generally considered to be faster than most electric cars, it could have easily been the zero-emissions standard of today – however until more investments are put into the infrastructure surrounding these FCEV’s, it is unfortunately unlikely that they will ever take off.
