By Robin Hayles, sustainable fuel development manager, Hyundai Motor UK

If you were to take a look over the last 10 years at game-changing automotive technology, such as electric cars and plug-in hybrids, you would be amazed at how far these advanced modern powertrains have come. This will soon be the case with fuel cell technology across the globe.

Since mass-production started in 2013 we’ve already seen a dramatic drop in the price of our ix35 Fuel Cell, which makes it even more accessible for customers. We’ve just delivered an ix35 Fuel Cell to Anglo American, who is our first customer in the UK outside of the hydrogen industry – it’s an important step forward for us as a brand.

There are, of course, common preconceptions that hydrogen technology will always cost huge amounts of money. However, I’m certain this is simply not the case.

Our long term goal at Hyundai is to offer our ix35 Fuel Cell for the same price as the equivalent model in our ix35 range. And I think we will see this across the board with OEMs, who have also adopted the technology.

If you take a look back at other technologies, you will see a very similar pattern in terms of price – as the technology becomes more mainstream, the price begins to fall as production volume increases.

The key issue we have with fuel cell technology is that many people think we are still 10 years away from it becoming a reality. This isn’t true.

Hydrogen-powered mobility is now a reality: customers can buy our cars and visit fuelling stations to fill them up (albeit limited in number at the moment). Within the next 12 months we will also begin to see fuel cell cars from other manufacturers – ultimately proving that hydrogen technology is very much happening now.

Hyundai began researching Hydrogen-powered mobility back in 1998, and we have taken huge steps since then at our R&D centre in Namyang, South Korea.

The key thing to remember is we are not finished; we  are continuously researching ways to enhance and develop our technology. ix35 Fuel Cell is just the beginning.