2024 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 21:13
Linde and Hyundai drive fuel cell technology. The technology group and the car manufacturer want to use car sharing to not only bring potential customers closer to experiences with hydrogen cars.
By Thomas Flehmer
Hyundai and Linde set out on pioneering paths together. While most car manufacturers will not offer their results in fuel cell technology until next year at the earliest, the technology group and the car manufacturer from Korea are already taking the next step.
In Munich, 50 Hyundai ix35 Fuel Cells will kick off the car sharing called BeeZero exclusively with fuel cell vehicles from the summer. "We want to give the vehicles to customers so that customers can get to know and appreciate the new and largely unknown technology," says Andreas Wittmann.
Packages for the rental period
The managing director of the GmbH founded especially for the project, a wholly owned subsidiary of Linde, not only wants to set a new point in the emerging car sharing trend with hydrogen, but also with rental.
“The vehicles should not necessarily be ordered for short distances or minutes, but for half a day or a whole day or even for a weekend,” says Wittmann. Certain price packages are offered for this. Otherwise the hour costs 5.50 euros, the kilometer the usual 29 cents. Orders are placed and the door is opened via the app.
Hyundai ix35 Fuel Cell on the move with zero emissions
In contrast to other car sharing, the vehicles are not limited to the city center, but are intended to serve as a travel vehicle, for example to the nearby mountains. The tenants don't need to worry about a lack of range, as the Hyundai ix35 Fuel Cell can cover up to 600 kilometers with just under six kilograms of hydrogen. Every day there are still 450 kilometers in it. If the range is still not sufficient, Linde provides a mobility guarantee so that you can reach your home again and again.
Those who make it back can park the vehicle in certain parking zones in the districts or districts of Schwabing, Haidhausen and the Glockenbachviertel. Linde assumes that customers there are “car sharing users who are tech-savvy and want to be sustainable”, as Marketing Manager Thomas Schaefer of the Linde subsidiary says, “they think green, but are not eco-activists.” Minimum age is 22 years.
In order to set green aspects, only regeneratively produced hydrogen is obtained from the Mainz and Leuna Biogas energy park. This means that the vehicles are really emission-free on the road.
A quick end is planned
Of course, Linde and Hyundai not only want to make the world more beautiful with the new model, they also want to earn money with hydrogen and fuel cells at some point. But every beginning is difficult and expensive. Frank Meijer, who is responsible for the hydrogen issue at Hyundai Motor Europe, speaks in Pep Guardiola manner of “special conditions” for Linde vehicles.
And Linde, too, hopes to use car sharing to bring the subject of hydrogen and fuel cells into focus so that it can later win the contract for the construction of filling stations, for example. But a negative outcome is also conceivable, according to Wittmann. After a certain time, an inventory will be made. "If there is no business case, then the GmbH will end again."
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