HYUNDAI hydrogen taxis are to help the Paris pollution fight with a new deal to supply hundreds of the Hyundai ix35 hydrogen fuel cell electrically-powered vehicles.
Paris air pollution, mainly blamed on diesel vehicles with the combination of nitrogen oxides and particulates in the exhaust gases, has become so bad in recent years that there have been days when traffic has been banned.
While London attempts to tackle the clean air targets and high pollution problems with Ultra Low Emission Zones and the Congestion Charge, Paris is taking a radically different approach.
This summer the capital banned all cars registered before 1 January 1997 from the city’s streets from Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm – at risk of a 35 Euro fine – and mayor Anne Hidalgo said the ban could be extended in 2020 to all combustion-engine cars more than nine years old.
Currently only five Hyundai fuel cell taxis serve the Greater Paris area but the first tranche of 60 cars will be followed by many more with plans to expand the fleet to several hundred vehicles within the next five years.
Supplied to taxi start-up STEP in Paris as a replacement for fossil fuel powered taxis, the ix35 Fuel Cell is the world’s first mass produced and commercially available fuel cell electric vehicle and thanks to its efficiency it can drive up to 594km on a full tank.
Hyundai, the sponsors of the Customer service category in our Leasing Broker Awards, currently have more than 300 Hyundai ix35 Fuel Cell cars on European roads in 12 countries.
Thomas A. Schmid, chief operating officer at Hyundai Motor Europe, said: “Not only will the fuel cell taxis provide a clean transportation solution for the city, they are also a practical, comfortable and reliable choice for drivers and passengers.”
The 60 new ix35 Fuel Cell vehicles will replace petrol and diesel-powered cars but with over 17,000 taxis already in circulation in and around Paris, there’s still more work to be done.
However, the substitutions with the new vehicles is expected to save more than 800 tonnes of CO2 per year in exhaust emissions compared to a typical diesel-powered taxi with CO2 emissions of 135g/km.
That is the equivalent of 200 return trips from Frankfurt to New York, with only water vapour emissions from the tailpipe of the ix35.
That is more than all the FCEVs of other manufacturers combined. Its powerful asynchronous electric motor generates 136 PS with a maximum torque of 300Nm.
The ix35 Fuel Cell cars deployed are partially funded by the Hydrogen Mobility Europe Project, a public private partnership supporting research and development of fuel cell and hydrogen energy technologies in Europe.
