AutoBild has shared a story about the owner of a fuel-cell-powered Hyundai ix35 FCEV who asked the Korean car manufacturer to take the 7-year-old SUV back after seeing a €104,000 repair bill.
Till Westberg purchased his hydrogen-powered car in 2016 for €50,200. He says he occasionally had to make detours as big as 114 km (71 miles) just to have his gas tanks refilled, because there were no other stations nearby.
He was actually satisfied with the car itself, praising it for quiet driving, solid dynamic performance and up to 500 km (310 miles) of range. He had put around 84,000 kilometers (52,195 miles) on the car in seven years, never running into any major problems.
Everything changed when the ix35 suddenly stopped starting and a permanent error message popped up on the dashboard. Westberg went to a service center only to be slapped with a €104,000 repair bill – more than twice what he paid for the car. The fuel cell array alone was listed as an €85,000 replacement.