A large scale experiment on development and practical use of hydrogen powered trucks would be conducted by South Korea’s biggest automaker Hyundai Motor in 2020 according to a report published by the business website Calcalist on Tuesday.

While hydrogen as a fuel for vehicles have been in use for more than 50 years now, no auto company have been able to develop scalability of such vehicles to enable mass and serial production of a significant scale. Many industry experts have for long considered that hydrogen can be a cheap alternative fuel for vehicles because of its high availability in the atmosphere and the relatively low cost in comparison to other fuels such as gasoline and diesel.

Production of hydrogen powered vehicles have been started to be experimented with by auto majors such as Honda and Toyota driven the by the rising concerns of the impact of conventional fuels on the global environment and global warming and the stricter global regulations on vehicles powered by petroleum fuels such as diesel and petrol.

Hyundai has reportedly selected Israel as it place for the tests and experiments because of the favorable road and weather conditions there such as the extreme heat in the Dead Sea region and the existence of steep slope roads in the northern Galilee region. Further the opportunity for the company to conduct prolonged durability tests in carrying heavy cargo on the Arava road in southeastern Israel is also an ideal condition for the company to examine the hydrogen powered cars.

The report claimed that a meeting with the officials at the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office to advance the experiment was recently held by a senior delegation of Hyundai Motor recently. Before the experiment is set to take place, it is expected that a call for proposals for setting refueling stations of hydrogen produced from natural gas is to be given by the Israeli Ministry of Energy, the report claimed.

Taavura Group, Israel’s largest road haulage and logistics company, would be primarily responsible for conducting of the experimental drives of the hydrogen trucks, the report also said. It would also be helped by Colmobil Group which exclusively represents Hyundai Motors in Israel.

A hydrogen truck that started operating this year in Europe has already been introduced by Hyundai already where the company’s vehicle was able to run a distance of 400 kilometers on a hydrogen refueling of just 7 minutes.

(Adapted form XinhuaNet.com)

Categories: Creativity, Economy & Finance, Strategy, Sustainability, Uncategorized