[2020 Green Mobility Awards] Green Mobility Award, Jeon Sun-il Hyundai Motor Fuel Cell Design Division Executive Director

by Woo Sooyoun

Published 29 Jan.2020 09:00(KST)

[Asia Economy Reporter Suyeon Woo] "With the mission of 'becoming a provider of clean energy solutions for survival,' I have dedicated myself to developing hydrogen fuel cell systems for the past 17 years. I feel great fulfillment in knowing that this contributes, even if only slightly, to solving global warming."

On the 29th, Jeon Sun-il, Executive Director and Head of Fuel Cell Design at Hyundai Kia Motors, who received the Green Mobility Award (Minister of Industry and Trade Award) at the 10th Green Mobility Awards hosted by Asia Economy and sponsored by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of Environment, shared these thoughts. Executive Director Jeon was recognized for his contributions to securing the efficiency, durability, and safety of the system through his participation in Hyundai Kia Motors' hydrogen fuel cell development project, earning him the Green Mobility Award.

The hydrogen fuel cell system that Executive Director Jeon helped develop is installed in Hyundai's hydrogen electric vehicle Nexo, which is seen traversing roads everywhere. The fuel cell stack was robustly designed to facilitate fuel supply and water discharge, and the operating device components harmonized with the stack were compactly made to achieve high efficiency. Through this, they succeeded in developing a fuel cell system with global competitiveness in three aspects: price, durability, and fuel efficiency.

He reflected that setting the efficiency development goals and reaching them was the most challenging part of the system development process. Executive Director Jeon said, "The fuel cell system inherently has high efficiency, and to achieve efficiency beyond that, we had to push the target to the theoretical limit value (60%). It was an achievement that could never have been realized without intense discussions and collaboration within the task force (TF) composed of design, control, and testing experts."

Jeon Sun-il, Executive Director of Hyundai Motor Company, is being interviewed on the 29th at the Chosun Hotel in Jung-gu, Seoul, ahead of the '2020 Korea Green Mobility Awards' hosted by Asia Economy. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

The average efficiency of the fuel cell system installed in the Nexo is 60% (North American standard), the highest level in the world, providing a driving range of 609 km per charge and durability of 160,000 km or 10 years, offering the industry's best quality warranty period. In terms of power performance, it has been upgraded to deliver approximately 20% more output than the previous generation hydrogen electric vehicle, Tucson ix.

He said, "With the world's first hydrogen electric vehicle Tucson ix launched in 2013, we demonstrated our technological capabilities to the market, and with the mass production system of Nexo established in 2018, we confirmed durability, efficiency, and supply stability through localization. I feel proud every time I see Nexo frequently on the roads."

Since joining the company in 2003, Executive Director Jeon has been in charge of hydrogen fuel cell development and was interested in fuel cell-related work that could become a market 'game changer' from the early days of his career. At that time, hybrids were emerging as an alternative for eco-friendly vehicles, but his focus was solely on the fuel cell part. After participating in development for 17 years, he succeeded in showcasing Hyundai's hydrogen fuel cell technology on the global stage. His next goal is to apply the world's top-level hydrogen fuel cell technology to various fields and make it widely used in our daily lives.

Executive Director Jeon said, "If we have shown Hyundai's technological capabilities to the market so far, we will expand the application range to various fields such as commercial vehicles through the next system currently being prepared. Narrowly, it contributes to securing profitability at the company level, and broadly, it leads the way in environmental protection at the same time."