this post was submitted on 09 Apr 2026
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Hydrogen
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Hydrogen cars will win when they are cheaper to own.
Physics dictates that they will not.
Producing chemical fuels is always less efficient, energy wise. Batteries are cheaper already and fuel infrastructure is widespread and cheap.
Hydrogen is awesome since it can be used as an oxidizer. But you don't need that in a car.
When cost of energy is baiscally zero, this stops being relevant.
Batteries require much more raw materials to build. It could easy be the more expensive solution.
A hydrogen cell needs expensive minerals too and catalysts are consumable. And you can recycle batteries.- And batteries are getting cheaper quick. Batteries scale down easier. Batteries are less of a hazard in accidents. Hydrogen leaks are not just explosive but also terrible for the climate.
Cost of energy is not zero and will not approach it before carbon neutrality. Hydrogen cars must either be deployed at scale today or are a expensive and deadly distraction.
Not really. Only PEM require precious metals, and even then just a few grams of it per car. This will trend downwards over time. Not to mention it is also easily recycled. Fuel cells are much lighter and require much less raw materials to make compared to batteries. In the long run, they will cost much less than batteries to produce.
Hydrogen is much safer than batteries in an accident. Li-ion are known to be extremely flammable and have killed hundreds of people in various fires. Hydrogen is lighter than air and does not linger in a leak. Hydrogen is not toxic and not a GHG (be wary of fossil fuel propaganda against green technology. Even wind turbines "caused global warming" according to the fossil fuel companies).
Lithium being extremely flammable and dangerous in crashes is fake news/misleading propaganda. It is safer than gas. Hydrogen is among the most explosive gases. A containment breach in an accident is not vented easily and may make movie style car crashes a reality.
Hydrogen may form methane in the upper atmosphere after leakage and hence substantially contribute to ghg load even when there is only minor leakage. The precise numbers are not known yet, as far as I know. It is not a miracle gas. For example Jülich is researching this: https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/ice/ice-4/research/hydrogen-impacts-on-the-climate-system
Then you are falling for battery propaganda. There have been many deaths related to battery fires. This has been well documented. Meanwhile, hydrogen deaths are nearly zero. The fuel does not concentrate enough to be all that dangerous. There have been zero "movies style car crashes".
Your study is basically the fossil fuel propaganda I'm talking about. It openly admits that hydrogen is not a direct GHG. So it conjures up a hypothetical situation where it extends the life of methane in the atmosphere. Even if it is real, it goes away once methane emissions stop. It can only be a problem if we fail to stop fossil fuel use.
That's the issue; hydrogen has none of the inertia of fossil fuel ICE, most of the drawbacks, and a ton of its own unique issues (like bulky/dangerous storage of hydrogen). It won't be cheaper than ICE. It won't be cheaper than EV-drivetrain hybrids, either.
And even if hydrogen cars were somehow cheaper, why spend billions setting up hydrogen infrastructure? We already have gasoline. Or natural gas fuel cells, if that's the tech angle.
Hydrogen was an interesting "transition" fuel like two decades ago when electric drivetrains and power transmission were less advanced, and leaders thought populations would care about climate change. But society collectively decided to just ignore it and keep using gas. Hence I think that window is passed.
Fuel cells are much simpler than ICEs and much lighter than batteries. A fuel cell car could be cheaper than both. Hydrogen-ICE cars are also possible.
Gasoline and natural gas are fossil fuels. Green hydrogen is not. Of course, you can make green gasoline or natural gas (basically what e-fuels are) but both require hydrogen as an input.