Hyundai Nexo Review 2024

It takes a certain level of bravery to be a pioneer. That’s certainly the case if you are considering buying a car powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. There are currently only two available in the UK: the Toyota Mirai and the Hyundai Nexo we’re looking at here.

If you still think a fuel cell-powered car is a viable option for you, you’re probably wondering what the Hyundai Nexo is actually like. Rather good, as it happens. As we explain in our Hyundai Nexo review.

It’s a similar size to SUVs such as the Audi Q5 and BMW X3. As such, it has ample room for four adults to travel comfortably and therefore works very well as a family car. The boot is plenty big enough 95% of the time, although light packing may be required for a family holiday.

The interior is a nice place to spend time. The light grey colour scheme and big windows create a bright ambience, the seats are deeply comfortable and the whole interior feels built to last.

It’s a little odd that a car with cutting-edge powertrain technology has so many buttons on its dashboard, but it’s arguably more user-friendly than stuffing all of the features into a touchscreen.

The Hyundai Nexo’s touchscreen-controlled infotainment system is easy to get to grips with. The screen is responsive and looks bright and sharp, while features include sat-nav, Apple CarPlay/Android Auto connectivity, DAB radio and Bluetooth.

Other features fitted to the one model available, the Hyundai Nexo Premium SE, include an opening glass sunroof, electrically adjustable front seats with heating and ventilation, heated back seats, a heated steering wheel and much more besides.

The Hyundai Nexo’s hydrogen fuel cell powers an electric motor that drives the front wheels. There’s 163PS on tap, and performance is pretty punchy around town. A 0-62mph time of 9.5 seconds is similar to petrol or diesel SUVs with similar power. Hyundai claims a range of 413 miles: around 65 miles per kilo of hydrogen.

Refuelling costs about the same as filling a similarly-sized SUV with petrol or diesel. Servicing costs should be negligible, there’s no vehicle excise duty (VED, or road tax) to pay and company car benefit-in-kind (BIK) tax rates are very low.

The Hyundai Nexo is a very easy car to drive. The steering is light, there’s plenty of grip, it feels relatively compact and you have a great view out. You may still be glad of the parking sensors and cameras, though. It feels perfectly at home on any type of road and offers a smooth and quiet ride.

At the time of writing, prices for the Hyundai Nexo aren’t publicly available – you’ll have to contact a Hyundai dealer to find out. However, when it was first launched in the UK, the Nexo was priced at around £70,000, the same kind of money you’d pay for an electric SUV of similar size.

If you’re sure a hydrogen car will work for you, the question becomes whether you get a Toyota Mirai or a Hyundai Nexo. Of the two, the more practical Nexo is the one to choose if you need a family car.

There are many who dismiss fuel cells as a dead-end technology, insisting that battery-electric vehicles are the only solution to zero-emissions motoring.

Both fuel cells and batteries have their issues and the latter is certainly likely to dominate the car market in the coming years. However, it’s entirely possible that, in future, there will be plenty of other options besides going electric – and hydrogen fuel cells may be one of them.   

In the here and now, it’s somewhat challenging to own a hydrogen-fuelled car in the UK. Principally because there are very few filling stations, and most of them are in London.

Other parts of the world have advanced much further in developing an infrastructure to support hydrogen cars. Even so, the cost of hydrogen (which is sold by the kilo) compares pretty well with petrol and diesel prices.

At just under 4.7 metres long, the Hyundai Nexo has a similar footprint to lots of other SUVs, including the petrol/diesel BMW X3 and electric Ford Mustang Mach-E. There’s loads of headroom, legroom and shoulder width in the front – enough for basically anyone to get comfortable. Still, that’s true of every SUV this size.

The back seats are generously roomy, too. There’s enough room for a couple of six-foot-tall adults to sit behind people of similar height in the front.

Getting a third adult into the back of the Nexo is something of a squeeze. If that’s a regular requirement, you might be better off with Hyundai’s own Santa Fe. Kids have room to stretch out in the back of the Hyundai Nexo, so it’s plenty spacious enough for a family of four.

With a capacity of 471 litres, the Hyundai Nexo’s boot is a little undersized compared with petrol or diesel rivals, but it’s similar to plug-in hybrid and electric alternatives.

It should cover the needs of most families pretty well, swallowing large amounts of shopping or sports kit. A long holiday might require careful packing, however.

The boot floor is square and flat, and the opening is massive, so it’s easy to chuck stuff into the back. There’s a ski hatch behind the middle back seat for long loads, and the back seats fold down for those occasions when you need to carry really big stuff.

A pair of large display screens sits on top of the Hyundai Nexo’s dashboard, one a touchscreen for the infotainment system, the other in front of the steering wheel.

Most of the car’s other features and functions are controlled by buttons and knobs on the steeply-sloping centre console.

It’s a bit odd that a high-tech car like the Hyundai Nexo would have a rather old-school, button-heavy dashboard.

Yet it’s more user-friendly than cars such as the Volkswagen ID.4, in which everything is accessed through the infotainment screen or controlled by awkward touchpads. However, the buttons’ silver finish can make it difficult to see the labels in bright sunlight.

A palette of light greys and silvers is used throughout the Hyundai Nexo’s interior, and lots of light comes in through the large windows and sunroof. It will need regular cleaning to avoid surface staining, though.

Everything you touch feels pretty high-quality, there don’t appear to be any cheap and brittle plastics used anywhere. The leather and cloth seats feel plush and the whole interior is really solidly put together.

A 12.3-inch touchscreen in the middle of the Hyundai Nexo’s dashboard houses the infotainment system. It’s a higher-grade setup than fitted to other Hyundai models, and provides a lot of information specific to the car’s hydrogen fuel cell powertrain.

Features you’ll find in the system include sat-nav, DAB radio and Bluetooth. You can also connect your phone via Apple CarPlay or Android Auto if you’d rather use your favourite navigation and streaming apps.

The touchscreen looks pretty good, the graphics are clear, the colours are bright and the screen responds promptly when pressed.

Alternatively, you can navigate around the system using the shortcut buttons and clickwheel on the centre console. There are the usual phone and stereo controls on the steering wheel as well.

Speaking of the stereo, it’s an eight-speaker system with a separate amplifier and subwoofer made by high-end audio specialist, Krell. Its products always sound great.

The driver has their own 7.0-inch digital display, which shows all sorts of driving and vehicle data. There’s also a wireless phone charging pad in a storage tray under the centre console.

At the time of writing, prices for the Hyundai Nexo aren’t published on Hyundai’s website. If you want to find out, get in touch with one of the 12 dealers dotted around the country that are authorised to sell and service the Nexo.

We can say that, when it was first launched in the UK, the Nexo was priced at around £70,000, which compares pretty well with large-ish electric SUVs like the BMW iX3 and Jaguar I-Pace.

A significant disadvantage for hydrogen fuel cell cars like the Hyundai Nexo is there are currently very few filling stations in the UK with a hydrogen pump.

Nine are listed on Hyundai’s website, most of them clustered in and around London. However, our research suggests that list may not be fully up-to-date. Hydrogen filling stations are much more common in mainland Europe.

If you’re thinking about getting a Hyundai Nexo, it would be wise to find out if you live near a filling station or some other source of liquid hydrogen.

As for how much hydrogen costs, you’re looking at around £12 to £15 per kilo at a filling station. The Hyundai Nexo’s storage tank holds 6.33kg, so that’s £75 to £95 to completely fill it.

That gets you a range of up to 413 miles, according to Hyundai. A petrol or diesel SUV of similar size would cost about the same to refuel and provide a similar range.

Fuel cells don’t require much maintenance, so servicing costs should be low. There’s no vehicle excise duty (car tax) to pay, and company car benefit-in-kind tax rates are very low. The Hyundai Nexo is covered by a five-year, unlimited-mileage warranty. 

Driving the Hyundai Nexo is a relaxing experience. The ride is very smooth, the interior is quiet and the seats are really comfortable. The body heaves about a bit on bumpy roads, and sharp bumps can send a thump through the chassis, but only if you’re going pretty fast.

The Hyundai Nexo’s steering is nice and light (although you feel nothing through it) and you have a really good view out. It’s relatively compact in size, so driving it around town is perfectly easy. There’s an array of sensors and cameras to help out when parking.

On a country road, the Hyundai Nexo feels reasonably nimble and responsive, although its relaxed nature doesn’t reward enthusiastic driving in the way a BMW X3 does. It’s perfectly solid and stable on motorways, too.   

The Hyundai Nexo is powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, where fuel and oxygen are combined to generate power. However, rather than petrol or diesel, it uses liquid hydrogen as fuel.

And rather than burning the fuel and oxygen mix as an internal combustion engine does, the hydrogen and oxygen chemically react with each other, creating electrons. These directly power the electric motor, or are stored in a small battery pack.

Fuel cells are still very rare in cars, but the technology has been around since the 1800s. It’s also very safe. Liquid hydrogen is nothing like as combustible as hydrogen gas and the Hyundai Nexo has a heavily reinforced hydrogen storage tank positioned in the middle of the car.

Between its fuel cell and motor, the Hyundai Nexo can muster 163PS and 395Nm of torque. Fairly modest numbers for a car this size, admittedly, but performance feels quite punchy all the same.

Accelerating from 0-62mph takes 9.5 seconds, while top speed is limited to 111mph. That’s perfectly adequate performance for this type of car, and in the same ballpark as a petrol/diesel SUV with similar power.

Safety experts Euro NCAP awarded a full five-star rating to the Hyundai Nexo, giving it strong marks in every area of the assessment. Scores of 94 percent for protecting adults and 87 percent for protecting children prove it’s very safe in a crash.

The Hyundai Nexo is fitted with loads of safety features, too. They include automatic emergency braking, blind-spot monitoring, a driver attention monitor, lane-departure warning, lane-keeping assist and speed limit recognition.

The Hyundai Nexo isn’t certified for towing, but you can fill the boot with 466kg of luggage and carry a further 100kg on the roof.

There’s just one model of Hyundai Nexo available, badged Hyundai Nexo Premium SE. That’s Hyundai’s top grade, so the Nexo comes with pretty much every gadget its maker offers.

The infotainment system is housed in a 12.3-inch touchscreen display and features sat-nav, DAB radio and Bluetooth, plus Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity if you prefer to use the navigation and entertainment apps on your phone. The driver also has a 7.0-inch digital display for vehicle and driving info.

Elsewhere in the Hyundai Nexo’s interior you’ll find leather and cloth upholstery, dual-zone climate control, an opening glass sunroof, a high quality eight-speaker Krell audio system and a wireless phone charging pad.

The front seats are electrically adjustable with heating and ventilation, plus the driver’s seat has lumbar support. The outer rear seats and steering wheel are heated as well.

Driver assistance features include adaptive cruise control, front and rear parking sensors, a reversing camera, a surround-view monitor, keyless entry and start, lane-departure warning and blind-spot monitoring.