Hyundai Mobis will invest US$1.1 billion (KRW 1.3 trillion) in two new fuel cell plants in Korea to accelerate the hydrogen economy and to secure broader global market dominance. The new plants will start mass production in the second half of 2023. When fully operational, the facilities are expected to produce 100,000 hydrogen fuel cells every year.

Once they are completed, Hyundai Mobis will operate a total of three fuel cells plants. In 2018, the company became the world’s first to set up a complete production system from fuel cell stack to rest of electronic components in Chungju. The Chungju plant is capable of producing approximately 23,000 hydrogen cell systems a year.

With the completion of the new plants, Hyundai Mobis plans to diversify its hydrogen business. Most fuel cell systems produced by Hyundai Mobis are used in fuel cell EVs but the company is expected to scale its business to other sectors such as construction machinery and logistics equipment.

Last year, Hyundai Mobis developed fuel cell power packs that go into hydrogen forklifts, opening up the possibility for entry into the construction machinery sector. The hydrogen power packs used by forklifts are generators that produce electricity on their own by combining a fuel cell stack, a hydrogen tank, and a cooling device.

Now the company is developing power packs for hydrogen-fueled excavator and plans to expand the fuel cell systems for small air mobility.

Hyundai Mobis is the N°7 global automotive supplier, with annual sales of nearly US$30 billion. With the R&D headquarters in Korea, Mobis operates 4 technology centers in Germany, China, India and the United States.