- In some alternate reality,
it's not electric replacing gasoline
on the nation's highways, but hydrogen.
(bubbly music)
I got a glimpse of that
alternate timeline recently,
as I spent five days behind the wheel
of Hyundai's newest fuel cell vehicle.
My co-pilot, Joshua
Vergara of JV Tech Tea.
My mission, a 900 mile road trip,
from San Diego to Sacramento,
using nothing but hydrogen.
It's too cold to hold.
I'm Mr. Mobile, and this
is the Hyundai Nexo review.
(happy music)
Day one, after a quick
drive up from San Diego,
the trip officially kicks off
at Hyundai's American
headquarters in Los Angeles.
I asked for a closer look at the Nexo,
so Hyundai takes us under the hood,
and then under the car for a crash course
on how it all works.
The disclosure, while I'm at it,
Hyundai provided travel, lodging
and some fuel reimbursement
for Josh and me,
but in accordance with my
reviews policy, no compensation.
Also, Hyundai did not
receive copy approval
or see this video before publication.
Like I said in my video
on the Toyota Mirai,
my favorite fun fact about hydrogen cars
is that technically
they're also electric cars.
The propulsion in the Nexo
comes from an electric motor,
driving the front wheels,
drawing power from a battery.
The difference is that instead
of carrying around a huge
70 to 100 kilowatt hour
power pack, like a Tesla,
the Nexo settles for a small
1.5 kilowatt hour battery.
It can get away with that,
because the Nexo produces
its own electricity.
It does this by sucking
air from the atmosphere,
there's an intake behind
the grill up front,
separating the oxygen from that air,
and compressing and injecting
it into something called
a fuel cell stack.
There, it's combined with hydrogen
in a chemical reaction that
keeps the battery charged.
The assembly is just as quiet
as a typical electric car,
so the Nexo has a noise maker
to warn pedestrians of its presence.
Kinda sounds like a friendly UFO.
Back on the road with Josh,
passing the oil pump jacks
and ocean liner smoke
stacks of Long Beach,
let's talk about just how
green the hydrogen car is.
Just taken here on the street,
the Nexo is much cleaner
than your average gas burner.
Which leaves behind a bunch of stuff
that's either not healthy for you,
or not healthy for the planet, or both.
The Nexo's only exhaust is hot water,
which tinkles out through twin tailpipes.
In fact, the car actually
leaves the air cleaner
than it found it, thanks to the filtration
necessary to feed oxygen to the fuel cell.
But it's not 100% emissions free,
because of how the
hydrogen fuel is produced.
More on that in a bit.
(soft electronic music)
Settling in, and driving toward
our first fueling stop in Santa Barbara,
I realize no one's really
taking notice of us,
the way they do when I drive
something more highfalutin,
like a Tesla, and that's because the Nexo
keeps a low profile.
Only its distinctive
copper metallic paint job,
and cascade grille setting it apart.
And despite its unusual power plant,
living with it for five days
will come to make it feel like
driving any well made SUV.
The cargo space is ample.
The cabin, spacious.
I'm a sun starved, winter
wimp this time of year,
so I really appreciated
the retractable sunroof.
And both Josh and I liked that
we could use Android Auto,
instead of the built in NAV system.
Navigate to Nava Coffee Post.
(laughing)
Let's wake up everybody.
- [Navigation System] Sharing
results for Napa Coffee.
- [Michael] Oh well, huh, good
enough, alright I'll take it.
And this was my first
exposure to ventilated seats.
I'll let Josh speak to how those feel.
- Well this is like walking
in like snowy New York.
It'd be like gotta sit down.
- Yes,
(laughing)
but you're in a snowsuit,
so the moisture doesn't come through,
but you're sitting on cold snow.
- Yeah, that's it.
- That's exactly what it is, you're right.
The Nexo was rated for 380 miles
on a full load of hydrogen,
but that's only for the Blue trim level.
And because we're driving
the heavier, Limited model,
we can only expect about 350 miles,
so that's why we decided to
fill up in Santa Barbara,
and this is where hydrogen
cars have the biggest edge
over battery electrics.
See, even on a super
charger, a Tesla needs
20 to 30 minutes to carry
you another 150 to 200 miles.
The Nexo can fill up
its three hydrogen tanks
in about five minutes.
I'll take us back to the lift real quick,
and you can actually see one of 'em
peeking out from the under carriage here.
Each of these tanks stores
just under 14 gallons
of hydrogen gas, at 10,000 psi.
That's a lot of pressure,
and listening to the spooky
sounds of the fueling system,
I'd be lying if I said I
didn't think about all that
potential energy, sitting
under my back seat.
It is disconcerting to be
near this much pressure.
So why did I drive the thing
almost 1000 miles anyway?
Well, the Nexo's hydrogen tanks
are made from carbon fiber
that the company says is
about two inches thick.
They've been crash tested, burn tested.
When Toyota tested its tanks,
it had to shoot one with
a rifle to penetrate it.
And if there is a rupture,
the Nexo's computer system
is designed to immediately
seal off the fuel lines.
Look, I'm not trying to say
hydrogen isn't dangerous,
it's very easy to ignite,
and as this article says,
any fuel is dangerous if mishandled.
But I am saying is that I'm convinced
Hyundai respects that risk,
and handles hydrogen properly.
I'll link to that article
in the description.
Please subscribe while you're there,
if you're enjoying this video so far.
(electronic music)
Heading north from Santa Barbara,
we try and stick close to the coast,
resisting the urge to have a
merlot at the Hitching Post,
- I am not drinking any (beep) merlot.
- [Michael] And detouring through
the Denmark inspired streets of Solvang.
And it's here that we realize
our minor miscalculation.
See, north of here the
fuel stations thin out.
There are only, after all,
36 of them across California.
So Josh and I have to recalculate.
We have to backtrack by a half
an hour to top off our fuel,
laying in a new inland
course for San Jose.
And we do make it there,
with about 30 miles left in the tanks,
but we couldn't take
the route we wanted to,
and those last few miles, I
was getting a little nervous.
After all, you can't just
call AAA and ask for a gas can
when your hydrogen runs out.
The bright side, more fueling
stations are planned for 2019,
and that the Nexo is delivering
on its range promises,
and accurately forecasting
between fill ups.
The hills of our next stops,
San Francisco and Sausalito,
help us get even more mileage,
because we can use regenerative braking
to convert some of our downhill
inertia to electricity.
Which goes back into the battery.
It's not as pronounced as on a Tesla,
or Chevy Volt, you can't one pedal drive,
but it helps us pad out
our range estimates,
and save on fuel costs.
More on that later too.
The weather takes a turn for the worse
on the northbound drive though,
so we're forced to cancel
our planned excursion to Lake Tahoe.
Instead we swing through Sacramento,
and camp out at a coffee shop,
where Josh takes some moody, vloggy video.
Re-caffeinated, and re-energized
by a trip to Atlas Obscura,
Josh and I plot a course for
a nerdy point of interest,
and since that takes us back
inside the cabin for awhile,
I can tell you something else.
The Nexo is a completely comfortable ride.
These seats still feel
great, even after days,
and there's plenty of room to spread out.
Three can fit in the back,
and there's a proper outlet
for laptops or other gear too power hungry
for the USB ports up front.
And I'm happy to report
that those do kick out
more current than most cars.
Also up front, a Qi wireless charging pad,
compatible with most modern phones.
And above it, more buttons
than an airliner cockpit.
I'm torn on these, I love buttons in a car
because there's nothing less
tactile than a touch screen
while you're driving,
but there are just so
many keys on this thing.
And with the exception
of the big selector knob,
they're all too smooth to feel out
while keeping your eyes on the road.
A much better feature is
this blind spot monitor
that kicks on when you
signal a lane change.
No more craning your neck
to check over your shoulder.
You just flit your eyes
down to the cluster.
Also, the collision avoidance system
will warn you if you're about
to back out of a parking spot
into oncoming traffic.
That is cool.
And I love the bird's eye view camera,
when squeezing into a tight parking space.
And there is an automated
parking system too,
but we never ran into a parking situation
we couldn't handle ourselves.
When talking about handling,
the Nexo is predictable at every turn.
From the zero to 60 in 10 seconds,
to the responsive but not
overly tight steering,
there are no surprises here.
It's not built to be fun to drive.
It's built for comfort, cargo capacity,
and its particular breed of fuel economy.
And it achieves all of those,
while maintaining a pretty
quiet cabin to boot.
Oh by the way, we're finally at the site
Josh and I detoured to see,
and if you used a windows computer
from the years 2001 to hmm, 2012 or so,
this might look familiar.
(Computer chiming)
(soft techno music)
On the last night of our
trip, Josh and I take the Nexo
through Napa, where the
restaurants have animal heads,
and the coffee shops have cellists.
(cello music)
this is also around the
time of our final fill up
on our own dime this time,
because we've finally blown through
all of our Hyundai hydrogen bucks.
You've probably noticed
how quickly the pump gages
shot up on our refills.
Each time we took out a load of fuel,
it cost north of 80 bucks.
And in addition to the expense,
the way that hydrogen is
produced effects how green
you can pat yourself
on the back for being.
While it is possible to make hydrogen
by splitting water with electricity,
right now, 96% of the
world's hydrogen fuel
is made my reforming methane,
and that produces CO2
as a waste product.
As we button up the car after
900 hydrogen fueled miles,
it's time to talk pricing.
The Nexo is priced between
$58,000 and $63,000,
depending on trim.
While lease terms weren't
finalized at press time,
Hyundai tells us some free
fuel will be included.
I had a fantastic week in the Nexo.
It's incredibly comfortable,
it's got a ton of features
that make driving it a pleasure,
and it's much more spacious
than the Toyota Mirai,
which costs about the same.
If I were buying a
hydrogen fuel cell vehicle,
which assumes I'd be moving to California,
since that's the only
state you can use one,
the Nexo is absolutely
the one I would go with.
But I don't think I'd be
buying a hydrogen car.
Yes, you can refill one
of these much faster
than you can charge an electric one,
but you can drive a battery electric car
in all 50 states.
You can also start every
day in an electric car
with a full battery, since
you can charge it at home.
And you can find places to fill it up
a lot more easily than
you can a hydrogen car.
And that's a reality that
I think is gonna persist
into the foreseeable future.
The Hyundai Nexo is the best
fuel cell vehicle I've driven.
But hydrogen has a long way to go
to convince me that it's
the future of driving.
Thanks for coming with
us on this ride folks,
and don't forget Josh
Vergara has his own take
on our five day hydrogen journey.
Check it out right here,
subscribe to his channel over there,
and until next time, thanks for watching,
and stay mobile, my friends.
