Hyundai backs hybrid, then hydrogen, for cars of the future

As the world's biggest car makers become increasingly divided on diesel or hybrid power over the next decade, electric-propulsion has gained a new fan.

Korean car maker Hyundai looks set to follow in Toyota's tyre tracks by backing petrol-electric hybrid technology, ahead of plug-in hybrid, full electric vehicles and hydrogen-powered fuel cell cars by 2020.

Speaking at a roundtable conference with Australian journalists at Hyundai's headquarters in Seoul yesterday, the company's president and CEO Steve S Yang said: "We think that presently and for the time being hybrid is the major trend, even though the Europeans think differently with clean diesel as a solution."

He added: "We think worldwide hybrid is the major trend but slowly electric cars and plug in hybrids will be introduced … and we will take some shares (sales from rival brands)."

He said "by the year 2020 we think that the fuel cell electric vehicle will be produced" and available for the public to buy.

Hyundai already has a hybrid vehicle in its line-up – the medium-sized Sonata sedan – but that model is only on sale in South Korea and North America.

That vehicle is not likely for Australia, but a hybrid version of the next generation Sonata could make it Down Under.

"We have a medium-term plan and a long-term plan," Mr Yang said. "We already about 100 fuel cell vehicles … 50 in Korea and 50 in California."

Hyundai director of PR for overseas markets, Frank Ahrens, said: "We have a number of bets that we're pursuing in a number of different ways. What is the ultimate engine? Nobody knows that. If you look at market preferences around the world, there may not be one ultimate engine.

"You can't sell a car with a diesel engine in the US and Europe is less interested in hybrids than the US. That makes it doubly tough to have one final engine. We are pursuing everything."

The world's biggest producer of hybrid vehicles, Toyota, predicted two years ago that hybrid power would become more mainstream and more viable as the cost of reducing the emissions of diesel engines would become prohibitively expensive.

Diesel engines are more fuel efficient but produce more oxides of nitrogen and other nasties than do engines powered by petrol. To meet stringent regulations, car makers – particularly those in Europe – will need to equip their diesel exhausts with expensive soot traps.

Toyota says this makes hybrid technology more viable but Volkswagen, the biggest maker of diesel engines, says it has the knowhow to clean-up the tailpipe nasties from diesel engines – without breaking the bank.

We'll find out who's right in 2016, when the next emissions step change is introduced.

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