![]() With full tanks and when loaded to the 82,000-pound gross combination weight limit for electric tractor-trailers, Hyundai claims the XCIENT can go 450 miles. Future evolutions will eventually do away with the traditional gearbox and put electric motors on the axles, eliminating the mechanical retarder and improving regen performance.Ī driveshaft turns both tandem axles in back, creating the 6x4 drivetrain that's the norm for U.S. The transmission housing contains a mechanical retarder that helps slow the truck when the battery is full and regen braking can't be employed. We specify "driven" because a cruise-control offset feature allows the rig to reach 9 mph over the cruise speed when going downhill, so the gravity-assisted top speed is 66 mph. Since the XCIENT's top driven speed is just 57 mph, the truck only uses the first five cogs in the box. The motor hooks up to an Allison six-speed automatic transmission. This explains some of the old-school bits tucked among the new tech that helped get the XCIENT to market quickly. The XCIENT FCEV adapts the hard points of the existing, diesel-powered XCIENT semi that has been sold worldwide since 2013. Hyundai is placing its first bet with the XCIENT, a Class 8 tractor on sale now and entering fleet duty at the Port of Oakland this summer. The refrain from everyone we spoke to, when it comes to trucking, was "Hydrogen is here." The Advanced Clean Transportation Expo in Anaheim, California, recently gathered all the bettors among the alt-fuel ranks. General Motors built the hydrogen-fuel-cell Electrovan in 1966, yet at no time in the last 57 years has the most common element in the universe merited even the notional optimism of "give it five years to take hold."īut that countdown timer might be counting down, finally. Now that battery-electrics appear firmly plugged into the transportation grid, hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) benefit from the shortest odds for wide adoption they've ever known.
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