We see so many battery electric cars being purchased but very little of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. What are the reasons?
In: Technology
There’s a distribution network across the world to distribute electricity. This makes it very easy to have recharge stations for EVs. Anywhere there is a power line, you can setup an EV charging station. Electricity is also fairly cheap. The average cost of electricity across the US depending on the source is between 12-25 cents per kWh.
For hydrogen, that distribution network doesn’t exist. The US Department of Energy says there are currently only 59 hydrogen refill stations in the entire US. There are plans for 50 more to be built. Now compare that to 168,000 EV recharging stations. Even if all of those 50 for built, there’s 1400 EV stations for every 1 possible hydrogen recharge station.
Now granted, it is a bit of a chicken and egg situation with the recharging stations for hydrogen fuel cells. There aren’t refill stations because there aren’t a lot of hydrogen fuel cell cars. And there aren’t a lot of hydrogen fuel cell cars because there aren’t a lot of fuel stations.
The final factor though is the price. Even if a distribution network did exist, hydrogen is much more expensive to create, and it is expensive to store. Because of its size, hydrogen will eventually leak out of anything you store it in.
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