GoKawiilHyundai's new 2026 Nexo is an electric SUV that cruises for up to 450 miles and refuels at a familiar-looking pump in 5 minutes. Instead of a battery pack, the Nexo generates electricity on the go from a hydrogen tank and fuel cell. On paper, it's exactly what Americans want -- long-range, fast fill-ups, few compromises -- but this new Nexo isn't coming to America because, for all intents and purposes, hydrogen consumer vehicles are dead in the US. How did we find ourselves here?
I touched down in Seoul to get behind the wheel of the Hyundai Nexo, talk with the automaker's engineers and Ivana Jemelkova, CEO of the Hydrogen Council, to learn what I can about hydrogen's future globally and in the US.
A brief hydrogen-powered history lesson
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have been inching forward for decades, from the 1966 Chevrolet Electrovan -- more rolling lab experiment than a usable car -- to the first wave of modern, lease-only offerings in the early 2000s. The Toyota FCHV and Honda FCX marked the point where regulators and automakers aligned enough to put FCEVs on public roads, albeit in tightly controlled numbers. Broader consumer exposure followed with the Honda FCX Clarity in 2008, before Hyundai entered with the ix35 Fuel Cell in 2013, and Toyota took a more public-facing approach with the Toyota Mirai in 2014.
By 2018, Hyundai's dedicated-platform Hyundai Nexo and a second-generation Mirai suggested the technology had moved beyond proof-of-concept and into something resembling a real product cadence.
Enlarge Image I was one of the first Americans to drive the previous-generation Nexo Prototype back in 2018. Antuan Goodwin/CNET
And yet, the market never followed. By the end of 2020, global FCEV passenger car sales hovered around 31,000 units, with just a handful of nameplates persisting in select regions. Programs like the Honda Clarity Fuel Cell came and went, while more experimental efforts -- including hydrogen plug-in hybrids -- remained low-volume exercises rather than scalable solutions. The limiting factors haven't changed much: a sparse and uneven refueling network, high system costs, and efficiency questions that are harder to ignore in a world where battery electric vehicles have rapidly matured.
That context hangs over the latest Nexo. By the time this second-generation model arrived, the competitive landscape had shifted decisively toward battery electric vehicles, leaving hydrogen to carve out relevance in narrower lanes. Hyundai's decision to focus the Nexo on markets like South Korea, where infrastructure and policy support are more aligned, underscores the reality. For everyone else, the question isn't what the Nexo is, but what it could be in markets that aren't yet built to support it.
The 2026 Hyundai Nexo
The second-generation Hyundai Nexo arrives for 2026 with the kind of incremental but meaningful upgrades that the first car arguably needed from the start. Dimensionally, the new Nexo grows slightly in every direction, pushing it closer to midsize SUV territory while retaining its aero-conscious proportions. Personally, I like the more upright aesthetic, and the inner graphic designer was pleased with the pixel motif found throughout Nexo's exterior and cabin.
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