The North American International Auto Show (known better as the Detroit Auto Show), kicked off this week with great fanfare and a deluge of news. One of the cooler announcements came from Audi, who unveiled its hydrogen-powered SUV, the h-tron quattro.
Hydrogen-powered vehicles have long been thought of as a possible solution to the fossil fuel dependency the auto industry has operated within for much of its history. In 2016, the leading candidate for running gasoline off the road remains electric cars, but hydrogen vehicles are closer than ever to becoming a reality. The h-tron quattro proves that.
Besides displaying the possibilities of fuel cell technology, the concept SUV comes with an impressive 372-mile range (on a single tank of hydrogen), the ability to go 0-60mph in less than 7 seconds and a refueling time of just four minutes. The latter is perhaps hydrogen’s best proponent against electric vehicles as even the speediest EVs generally take nearly 20-plus minutes to get a decent charge.
Like many concept cars, the h-tron quattro also features a glimpse at future technologies Audi will include in other production vehicles. Chief among them are the company’s piloted driving and parking technologies, which hinges on what Audi calls the “central driver assistance controller.” The controller is a device that computes a model of the car’s surroundings in real-time, making the information available to the piloted driving and parking systems that work similarly to Tesla’s Autopilot. The features are expected to first see the road in 2017 with Audi’s next generation A8 full-size sedan. The hydrogen SUV also includes curved OLED touchscreen displays on the interior, furthering the notion that your dashboard is going to get a lot more hi-tech in the next few years.
As with any new technology, though, the h-tron quattro and other hydrogen-powered cars face an uphill battle. As Chris Ziegler of The Verge notes, hydrogen vehicles don’t currently have a network of refueling stations and it will take decades before a proper system is built. There is time, though. At this point, we’re likely still years aways from a true hydrogen-powered vehicle going into production.
