Hyundai Nexo Travels 551.4 Miles On A Single Tank Of Hydrogen, Sets New World Record

A Hyundai Nexo in Australia has broken the world record for the longest distance traveled by a hydrogen-powered vehicle on a single tank.

Local rally driver Brendan Reeves drove the production-spec Nexo from Essendon Fields in Melbourne to just beyond the small country town of Broken Hill. According to the Nexo’s trip computer, the trip totaled 887.5 km (551.4 miles), beating the previous world record of 778 km (483.4 miles) set by French aeronaut Bertrand Piccard in 2019.

Hyundai’s hydrogen-powered crossover has an official range of 666 km (413.8 miles) on the WLTP cycle. A GPS unit in the Nexo showed the journey lasted 903.4 km (561.3 miles), while Google Maps showed the Reeves had traveled 905 km (562.3 miles) but for the purpose of the test, the car’s trip computer was used.

“Being a rally driver, I’ve always wanted to achieve a world record, but I could never have guessed it would come about this way,” Reeves said. “As we set out from Essendon Fields in the early morning, I found NEXO immediately familiar and easy to drive – the controls are intuitive and easy to use, the driving position excellent and seats very comfortable. NEXO is in its element on the open road, with its long range, peaceful and refined cabin, and smooth, near-silent fuel-cell electric powertrain.”

The Nexo completed the trip in 13 hours and six minutes at an average speed of 66.9 km/h (41.5 mph). During the journey, it purified 449,100 liters of air and consumed 6.27 kg of hydrogen.

While the Nexo isn’t yet widely available in the country, the Australian Capital Territory government is using 20 of them. There is a single hydrogen charging station in the capital of Canberra and one is expected to be completed in Brisbane by the end of 2021, with stations planned for other states and territories.