Hyundai Motor Co is currently South Korea’s top auto maker. It is one of the global car makers currently developing environmentally friendly vehicles, together with Toyota Motor Corp and General Motors Corp. All of them are eager to facilitate innovations to reduce the harmful emissions produced by their cars, primarily because of growing concerns on global warming.

Earlier this month at the Frankfurt International Motor Show, Hyundai just unveiled the “i-blue”, which is their fuel cell crossover utility vehicle. The Korean automaker is planning to begin its mass production in 2012 being the earliest and 2015 being the latest. An anonymous Hyundai official said, “We will start mass production of a fuel cell model, like the i-blue, from 2012 at the earliest, or from 2015 at the latest.” However, price details, sales targets and development costs have been delivered.

According to reuters.com, “Proponents insist that 5 million to 10 million fuel cell cars could be on the road within 15 years, with the number growing to 350 million worldwide by 2050.” That is for considering the though fuel cell is not yet commercially viable, it emits only water, since it uses the interaction between hydrogen and oxygen in generating electricity in order to power a car. However, it has been considered costing far too much, considering that it has insufficient widespread infrastructure that “motorists will need to fill their tanks with hydrogen”.

Hyundai, along with its affiliate Kia Motors Corp, also plans to start its mass production of Elantra compact car, a hybrid model, in 2010.