Only three years to go but Hyundai Construction Equipment Europe has announced it without hesitation: production of the first hydrogen powered excavators will start in 2023.

Two products have been chosen for the ambitious project: forklift trucks and hydrogen powered excavators, probably of medium/large size. Development site, the Mabuk Research Center in Yongin, Gyeonggi province, South Korea. To witness the whole, a MOU, a memorandum of understanding signed by Hyundai Motors and Hyundai Mobìs that combines construction machinery and hydrogen fuel cells, including also the construction of powerpack units.

The real obstacle, however, concerns the Italian market, since only in the province of Bolzano is the only hydrogen distributor in Italy. A shortage that South Tyrol has declared that it wants to fill with the construction of five more distributors for 2028, which will be joined by tose of San Donato Milanese (ENI) and Venice, already planned.

The project confirms itself as an environmental and industrial challenge for Hyundai Construction Equipment and Motors Group, and tries to respond to the need to combine environmentally friendly construction machinery, with a view to global sustainability. The machines will in fact use chemical reactions between hydrogen and oxygen, reducing the atmospheric emission to zero, diffusing only water vapour.