Integrated Production
Hyundai Mobis announced on August 9 that it built the world’s largest hydrogen car parts manufacturing plant in Cheongju, South Korea and the plant will be put into trial operation next month.
The company invested approximately 70 billion won (US$63 million) to build the plant with an area of 13,000 square meters. The plant is scheduled to supply powertrain fuel cell complete (PFC) modules in which fuel cell stacks, drive motors, power electronic components, hydrogen fuel supply units and so on are combined with one another. Hyundai Mobis is planning to produce 3,000 PFC modules a year at the plant before increasing the annual output to tens of thousands if necessary.
At present, rival companies are running limited production lines for only some key parts of hydrogen cars. The newly built plant of Hyundai Mobis, however, ensures a continuous flow from component manufacturing to system assembly and its manufacturing capacity is exceptional in the industry. It is expected that Hyundai Mobis will be able to develop and manufacture its products in a very timely manner based on its integrated production system, realize the economy of scale, and lead the market with reasonable prices.
The company has beefed up its own technology in the hydrogen car parts industry. For example, it recently developed its own membrane electrode assembly. In addition, it succeeded in reducing the weight of a fuel cell system by approximately 10% while improving its output performance by 15%.
The global hydrogen vehicle sales volume is expected to increase from 90,000 to 540,000 units a year from 2020 to 2025.