Hyundai NEXO 2021 Review

While many car-makers don’t think hydrogen has a future as transport fuel, two major brands, Toyota and Hyundai, clearly think it does.

While Toyota launches its new second-generation Toyota Mirai in Australia later in the year, Hyundai has just released its fuel-cell electric SUV, the 2021 Hyundai NEXO.

The NEXO is Australia’s first fully certified, five-star safety-rated hydrogen-fuelled car.

So far the NEXO has only been taken up by government fleets, with the ACT government taking 20 and Queensland signing up for five examples.

All NEXOs are offered on loan agreements only; Hyundai won’t sell anyone a NEXO outright. Loan terms are three or five years, with servicing, insurance and roadside assist in the subscription package.

However, the 2021 Hyundai NEXO is the Korean brand’s ambassador for fuel-cell electric vehicle (FCEV) technology, and in terms of its driving performance, features and packaging, there is very little to argue against it.

Hyundai Australia intends to offer the 2021 Hyundai NEXO to private buyers, but this won’t happen until sometime in the second half of this year.

The problem rests with the refuelling capacity at the hydrogen station in Canberra’s industrial suburb, Fyshwick. Until the hydrogen demand to supply the ACT government’s fleet of 20 NEXOs is established, Hyundai doesn’t want to commit to additional (private) sales.

Neither will the Hyundai NEXO be for sale as such; instead, it will be offered in an all-inclusive loan package (including servicing, roadside assistance and insurance) over three or five years.

Aside from that significant limiting factor – there being just one yet-to-be-public hydrogen refuelling station available with limited hydrogen capacity – the other is that just one ACT Hyundai dealer is authorised to service the NEXO.

Service intervals are at 12-month/15,000km intervals.

The Hyundai NEXO is available in Australia in one premium grade, which according to Hyundai’s product planner Scott Yoon, included “anything and everything available from the factory”.

This means that it comes with full leather upholstery, heated and leather-wrapped steering wheel, power-adjustable front seats (including lumbar adjustment for the driver’s seat), heated/ventilated front seats, tilt/slide sunroof, hands-free power tailgate, heated and power-folding side mirrors, dual-zone climate control (with rear vents), LED lights front and rear (including rear-only fog lights) and 19-inch alloy wheels (with a tyre mobility kit in place of a spare wheel).

The vehicle has a reverse parallel/perpendicular parking function, and while it’s hard to see beyond its novelty value, it can also be moved remotely with the key fob for forward/backward parking.

The NEXO is covered by Hyundai’s new-vehicle warranty for the duration of the loan and is available in four metallic paint colours matched with interior trims.

The Hyundai NEXO received a maximum five-star safety rating from ANCAP in 2019, based on testing conducted in the previous year.

It has six airbags as standard, although it’s missing a centre-front airbag that is becoming a feature in premium vehicles.

However, there’s a long list of standard equipment under the umbrella of what Hyundai calls SmartSense safety technologies.

These include forward collision avoidance assist with lane oncoming functionality (FCA-LO), smart cruise control (SCC) with stop and go, high beam assist (HBA), lane keeping assist system (LKA), blind spot collision avoidance assist (BCA-R), blind spot view monitor (BVM), surround view monitor (SVM), rear cross traffic collision avoidance assist (RCCA) and driver attention warning (DAW).

Infotainment tech is well catered for too, with a fully digitised 12.3-inch instrument panel covering off speed and charging information as well as climate control, navigation and infotainment details.

Offering Apple CarPlay and Android Auto facility, the Hyundai NEXO also has Qi-enabled smartphone charging, USB multimedia input, Bluetooth audio streaming and DAB+ digital radio. The audio system is by Krell, with eight speakers and external amplifier.

The powertrain in the 2021 Hyundai NEXO consists of a 95kW hydrogen fuel-cell system and floor-mounted 1.56kWh 240-volt lithium-ion polymer battery pack to power a 120kW/395Nm electric motor. Combined system power output is 135kW.

Unlike with a battery-electric vehicle, NEXO users will never be in the position of having to stop their vehicle and charge it for hours.

Instead, the NEXO’s 440 hydrogen fuel cells can be filled from empty in less than five minutes. That’s assuming, of course, that you have ready access to a hydrogen fuelling station.

At least the NEXO promises a good touring range, with a WLTP-rated 666km before refuelling is required. This is a 30 per cent improvement on Hyundai’s first-generation (and smaller but heavier) ix35 FCEV.

On our relatively brief 150km drive in and around Canberra, the Hyundai NEXO averaged a consumption figure of 1.1kg of hydrogen per 100km. With its 6.33kg hydrogen tank capacity, on our consumption figure you’d safely get more than 500km out of a tank.

While the ACT refuelling site offers free hydrogen for the first year, according to Hyundai Australia spokesman Scott Nagar, the expectation is that in the future hydrogen prices will settle around the $10-$15 per kilogram mark.

That would put the NEXO in about the same ballpark as a medium/large SUV for refuelling costs and range.

The five-seat NEXO sits between Tucson and Santa Fe for size, and tipping the scales at more than 1800kg puts it in the slightly larger seven-seat Santa Fe’s league for kerb weight.

Hyundai says the NEXO will accelerate from 0-100km/h in 9.5sec, which is a good couple of seconds quicker than the ix35 FCEV. Top speed is a claimed 179km/h.

As with the hydrogen ix35, the NEXO feels most responsive up to about 80km/h and then tapers off. However, the NEXO’s acceleration is so linear that it’s deceptive. The NEXO rounded up a slower vehicle on the highway surprisingly quickly.

It is this attribute that makes this SUV so appealing to drive; unlike a traditional internal combustion vehicle, there hardly seems to be any peaks or troughs in its acceleration.

Like all other models in the Hyundai range, the suspension in the 2021 Hyundai NEXO – comprising MacPherson struts up front and a multi-link configuration at the rear – was tuned locally, and it shows.

While the ride is firm and you can feel that this is not a lightweight SUV, the Hyundai NEXO points and steers relatively well. There’s no crashing over potholes either.

Certainly this is not the most dynamic of SUVs, but it appears to be well within the pack for its handling response.

The interior is larger than you’d first think. The large bridge-type centre console (as we’ve already seen in the 2021 Hyundai Santa Fe) is clever in that the high console brings controls close to the driver.

It’s just that there are too many of them and the brushed silver finish is reminiscent of Lexus efforts in the early 2000s.

At least the console design also provides a stack of storage underneath it, accessed by cut-outs on each side of the console.

While the rear seat is a little bit on the flat side, there is ample room. The NEXO offers a 461-litre boot that extends to 1466L with the rear seats folded.

We don’t yet know whether hydrogen-fuelled electric vehicles will become any more than bit players on Australian roads.

While the investment in refuelling infrastructure is promising, we’re a very long way off having a hydrogen refuelling point at every service station.

But what we can tell you is that, while this is not the SUV to buy and drive around Australia in now, the 2021 Hyundai NEXO does tick all the boxes for performance, dynamics, range and packaging to be competitive in the small SUV market.

How much does the 2021 Hyundai NEXO cost?
Price: TBA
On sale: Second half of 2021
Powertrain: Permanent magnet synchronous electric motor
Output: 120kW/395Nm (95kW fuel-cell stack, 135kW combined)
Transmission: Single-speed reduction gear
Battery: 1.56kWh lithium-ion polymer
Range: 666km (WLTP)
Fuel: 0.95kg/100km (EC)
CO2: 0g/km
Safety rating: Five-star (ANCAP 2018)