(Pocket-lint) - Hyundai has revealed its first ever electric race car - the Hyundai Veloster N ETCR - that will compete in the new ETCR (electric touring car racing) championship in 2020.

This is a fully-electric, rear-wheel drive, mid-motor racing car, looking to take everything that Hyundai Motorsport has learnt in WRC and push it forward in line with Hyundai's wider electrification plans.

1/2 Pocket-lint

It's a great looking car - but that's not the most interesting part of this story. No, the innocuous looking sarcophagus that Hyundai showed off next to the Veloster N ETCR piqued our interest a little more. It looks like the sort of chamber that Vision emerged from in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and it's not without significant power, either.

It's a generator powered by hydrogen that will be used to recharge ETCR cars, as Hyundai will be providing one to each of the competing teams. It means that there's a mobile source of power - as long as you have a source of hydrogen to pipe into it. The hydrogen line literally connects to the Generator and then you connect the CCS plug to your car. It will recharge at 60kWh - not the fastest, but fast enough.

Inside this generator are two hydrogen fuel cells, the same stack that's used in the Nexo, Hyundai's hydrogen car. As you may or may not know, a hydrogen fuel cell generates electricity to power a hydrogen car - it's not combusted like petrol or diesel in an engine.

The ability to create electricity from hydrogen means that for an electric touring car series, you don't need to be running dirty diesel generators to recharge the cars. Yes, you will need a hydrogen source connected to Hyundai's generator, but that can arrive in a tanker, Hyundai tells us.

While most are looking at electric cars as the future beyond fossil fuels, hydrogen has been pushed out of the consciousness to a degree. However, utilisation of hydrogen fuel cells in this way are a good reminder of hydrogen's potential as a power source.

The ECTR championship will take place in 2020 and will be looking to accelerate the performance of electric road cars into the future.

Writing by Chris Hall.