Hyundai Motor aims to export 64,000 hydrogen trucks by 2030

SEOUL, Oct. 8 (Yonhap) -- Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's biggest carmaker by sales, said Thursday it aims to export 64,000 hydrogen-powered trucks by 2030 amid growing demand for environment-friendly vehicles.

Hyundai Motor is at an initial state of selling its hydrogen fuel-cell commercial vehicles in global markets.

In July, the company shipped 10 XCIENT Fuel Cell hydrogen trucks to Switzerland in the country's first exports of hydrogen commercial vehicles. Hyundai plans to deliver 40 additional XCIENTs to the European country by December as part of its long-term contract to export a total of 1,600 XCIENTs to the country by 2025.

To achieve the export target, Hyundai said it will beef up production capacity to churn out up to 2,000 hydrogen commercial vehicles a year by 2021.

The maker of the Sonata sedan and the Palisade sport-utility vehicle is targeting to export an accumulated 25,000 hydrogen commercial cars to Europe, 12,000 to the United States and 27,000 to China by 2030, the company said in a statement.

It is planning to develop a hydrogen truck which can travel more than 1,000 kilometers on a single charge, it said. The XCIENT can travel up to 400 km per charge.

In 2018, Hyundai Motor Group announced that it will invest 7.6 trillion won in hydrogen car-producing facilities and related R&D activities by 2030. Under the plan, the group plans to churn out 500,000 hydrogen vehicles in 2030.

kyongae.choi@yna.co.kr
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