This review argues that the “hydrogen‑everywhere” narrative is running into hard physics and economics problems. Ferrari sells more supercars each year than all fuel cell vehicle manufacturers combined. Meanwhile, battery EVs, heat pumps and direct electrification are sprinting ahead. The authors suggest hydrogen’s most realistic future lies in heavy industry (steel, fertilizer, petrochemicals), long‑distance shipping, and seasonal energy storage. Applications that batteries or direct electrification are unlikely to work on.
If fuel‑cell cars are already outsold by BEVs 1000‑to‑1, will road transport ever pivot back to hydrogen?
With 60+ countries having a national hydrogen strategy, but everyone wanting to export it, how should governments redesign subsidies so hydrogen flows to genuinely “hard‑to‑abate” sectors instead of chasing unviable projects?
Electrolyser prices are falling, similar to solar panels, but clean hydrogen is still uncompetitive, equivalent to hundreds of dollars per barrel of oil equivalent. Will it ever be truly competitive?
Echelon_0ne on
Rich people = egocentrism < financing progress and development
SternenHund on
No fueling infrastructure = no fuel cell cars. More importantly, nobody (other than a few automakers) are really pushing fcev *light duty* vehicles these days, in the US at least. Batteries just make way more sense in that vehicle class.
Hydrogen would be great for high heat industrial uses, energy storage, really heavy duty vehicles, and *maybe* long haul trucking. Batteries just can’t compete for the first three but might develop enough in the next decade or so to power class 8 trucks efficiently. Right now we’re seeing two BEV class 8s doing the work of a single diesel or Hydrogen class 8 due to charging times.
We should really be using each where they make sense. Hydrogen is way more than just an unlikely alternative to LD BEVs.
cynric42 on
Yeah well, expensive and inefficient technology only has a small niche when better alternatives are doing a better job in most cases.
Crenorz on
Total fail product.
Here is the simple why
It is not legal – anywhere – to transport it… as it is too dangrous…
They have to make it on-site – so daily they can only make/store about enough to fill 50 vehicles – at a cost of over $200 / per.
That is after DECADES of research – so not new at all.
So at best $200 fillup, 50 max per day per station (not single stall – whole station)
And that is vs EV’s – that can be (where I am) under $1 to fully charge (over night with time of day pricing) only going to a peak of ~6$ if I do it at peak times.
There are many other reasons – but this is the basic – OH, it sucks… nm.
fulltrendypro on
Hydrogen isn’t dead, it just needs to stop pretending it’s the main character. It shines where batteries can’t: long-haul trucks, steel, shipping. But for cars? Home heating? That hype train missed its stop years ago.
Dark_Matter_EU on
The only people who still want to push expensive and inefficient hydrogen cars are car manufacturers (because they want to keep the customers in the maintenance loop )
With EVs there’s a lot less maintenance, way cheaper ‘fuel’, better efficiency and you can charge it literally on every outlet if you’re not in a rush eg. over night.
There’s zero advantage for a hydrogen car. The ‘faster fuelling’ about them is out of context marketing shizzle.
That hydrogen for personal transport is stupid economically, logistically and from a pure physics efficiency standpoint was already clear 10 years ago.
Robert_Grave on
So either you need to produce and use it on site, which would only be possible for huge industrial parks (or for example a big steel mill). Or produce it elsewhere and transport it. How? Pipeline? That’s a big investment. Road? Rail? Ever seen a gasoline tanker explode? Imagine that but x100.
You need carbon neutral generation, investing in storage to counter the intermitency of wind and solar is somehat doable in the form of batteries, but long term storage outside of hydropower is simply very expensive. And hydrogen will never stack up because it’s ineffecient. Storing mechanical energy somehow would probably be more effecient than hydrogen.
johnp299 on
Traditional auto (Toyota) and fossil fuel corps love H2 for greenwashing, other than that it’s not terribly useful.
mealucra on
Using hydrogen to power mobility solutions is stupid.
So much energy is used to produce and transport the hydrogen…
CertainMiddle2382 on
Hydrogen for everything was German/Russian gas pipelines greenwashing to keep their influence as long as possible
wizzard419 on
Wouldn’t part of it be that the fueling stations aren’t as common as others? There was a news report of some dealership with one they couldn’t sell (they were offering like 10k for the new car) because there was no hydrogen fueling stations in the state. If most people live nowhere near a refueling option, then it makes sense ferraris would be able to outpace them. They aren’t buying them because they can’t use hydrogen cars, but it’s a funny sounding comparison.
IanAKemp on
Hydrogen is a garbage fuel promoted by garbage human beings who have no honest interest in addressing the climate change crisis.
lohmatij on
I never understood what the benefit of Hydrogen car compared to say, Methane?
My friend used to drive a methane-converted taxi cab. Its cheaper than gas, as clean as hydrogen, and ANY car, can be retrofitted to Methane RIGHT NOW. So you can get a simple Kia, add Methane kit to it and drive it on gas/Methane depending on availability. Plus it’s easy and cheap to store, compared to Hydrogen. Also, gray Hydrogen is already produced from Methane, and if you start from water (and electrolysis) you can produce both.
14 Comments
Here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
[https://www.nature.com/articles/s44359-025-00050-4](https://www.nature.com/articles/s44359-025-00050-4)
And a free-to-read version:
[https://rdcu.be/eiLAx](https://rdcu.be/eiLAx)
This review argues that the “hydrogen‑everywhere” narrative is running into hard physics and economics problems. Ferrari sells more supercars each year than all fuel cell vehicle manufacturers combined. Meanwhile, battery EVs, heat pumps and direct electrification are sprinting ahead. The authors suggest hydrogen’s most realistic future lies in heavy industry (steel, fertilizer, petrochemicals), long‑distance shipping, and seasonal energy storage. Applications that batteries or direct electrification are unlikely to work on.
If fuel‑cell cars are already outsold by BEVs 1000‑to‑1, will road transport ever pivot back to hydrogen?
With 60+ countries having a national hydrogen strategy, but everyone wanting to export it, how should governments redesign subsidies so hydrogen flows to genuinely “hard‑to‑abate” sectors instead of chasing unviable projects?
Electrolyser prices are falling, similar to solar panels, but clean hydrogen is still uncompetitive, equivalent to hundreds of dollars per barrel of oil equivalent. Will it ever be truly competitive?
Rich people = egocentrism < financing progress and development
No fueling infrastructure = no fuel cell cars. More importantly, nobody (other than a few automakers) are really pushing fcev *light duty* vehicles these days, in the US at least. Batteries just make way more sense in that vehicle class.
Hydrogen would be great for high heat industrial uses, energy storage, really heavy duty vehicles, and *maybe* long haul trucking. Batteries just can’t compete for the first three but might develop enough in the next decade or so to power class 8 trucks efficiently. Right now we’re seeing two BEV class 8s doing the work of a single diesel or Hydrogen class 8 due to charging times.
We should really be using each where they make sense. Hydrogen is way more than just an unlikely alternative to LD BEVs.
Yeah well, expensive and inefficient technology only has a small niche when better alternatives are doing a better job in most cases.
Total fail product.
Here is the simple why
It is not legal – anywhere – to transport it… as it is too dangrous…
They have to make it on-site – so daily they can only make/store about enough to fill 50 vehicles – at a cost of over $200 / per.
That is after DECADES of research – so not new at all.
So at best $200 fillup, 50 max per day per station (not single stall – whole station)
And that is vs EV’s – that can be (where I am) under $1 to fully charge (over night with time of day pricing) only going to a peak of ~6$ if I do it at peak times.
There are many other reasons – but this is the basic – OH, it sucks… nm.
Hydrogen isn’t dead, it just needs to stop pretending it’s the main character. It shines where batteries can’t: long-haul trucks, steel, shipping. But for cars? Home heating? That hype train missed its stop years ago.
The only people who still want to push expensive and inefficient hydrogen cars are car manufacturers (because they want to keep the customers in the maintenance loop )
With EVs there’s a lot less maintenance, way cheaper ‘fuel’, better efficiency and you can charge it literally on every outlet if you’re not in a rush eg. over night.
There’s zero advantage for a hydrogen car. The ‘faster fuelling’ about them is out of context marketing shizzle.
That hydrogen for personal transport is stupid economically, logistically and from a pure physics efficiency standpoint was already clear 10 years ago.
So either you need to produce and use it on site, which would only be possible for huge industrial parks (or for example a big steel mill). Or produce it elsewhere and transport it. How? Pipeline? That’s a big investment. Road? Rail? Ever seen a gasoline tanker explode? Imagine that but x100.
You need carbon neutral generation, investing in storage to counter the intermitency of wind and solar is somehat doable in the form of batteries, but long term storage outside of hydropower is simply very expensive. And hydrogen will never stack up because it’s ineffecient. Storing mechanical energy somehow would probably be more effecient than hydrogen.
Traditional auto (Toyota) and fossil fuel corps love H2 for greenwashing, other than that it’s not terribly useful.
Using hydrogen to power mobility solutions is stupid.
So much energy is used to produce and transport the hydrogen…
Hydrogen for everything was German/Russian gas pipelines greenwashing to keep their influence as long as possible
Wouldn’t part of it be that the fueling stations aren’t as common as others? There was a news report of some dealership with one they couldn’t sell (they were offering like 10k for the new car) because there was no hydrogen fueling stations in the state. If most people live nowhere near a refueling option, then it makes sense ferraris would be able to outpace them. They aren’t buying them because they can’t use hydrogen cars, but it’s a funny sounding comparison.
Hydrogen is a garbage fuel promoted by garbage human beings who have no honest interest in addressing the climate change crisis.
I never understood what the benefit of Hydrogen car compared to say, Methane?
My friend used to drive a methane-converted taxi cab. Its cheaper than gas, as clean as hydrogen, and ANY car, can be retrofitted to Methane RIGHT NOW. So you can get a simple Kia, add Methane kit to it and drive it on gas/Methane depending on availability. Plus it’s easy and cheap to store, compared to Hydrogen. Also, gray Hydrogen is already produced from Methane, and if you start from water (and electrolysis) you can produce both.