Don’t want an electric car? Then hydrogen could be for you

With BMW, Toyota, Vauxhall and Renault pushing hydrogen as an alternative to batteries, has the time finally come for this ‘difficult’ fuel?

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You can’t keep a good idea down, or so they say. And hydrogen is a very good idea. Even Chancellor Rachel Reeves when presenting her budget, used hydrogen as an example of her strategy of investment, targeting £2 billion for 11 green hydrogen initiatives across the British Isles.
But hydrogen has been a bit of a fantasy up to now. Companies come and companies go in researching a transport future for the lightest element, building on Sir William Grove’s discovery of the fuel cell in 1842 and Francis Bacon’s work in refining the proton-exchange membrane, which is the type largely used in cars. In fact, some manufacturers think they would rather burn liquefied hydrogen in a combustion engine, in the manner of petrol, or simply not bother.
For the most part car makers are busy pushing existing product plans to electrify their passenger vehicles, particularly as the traditional hydrogen bugbears of expensive on-board fuel storage, the inefficiency of deriving it from renewable electricity (about 50 per cent loss of the calorific value of the fuel) and the difficulty in providing a roadside refuelling infrastructure put them off. Mercedes-Benz, for example, which at one time was the world leader in fuel cells, has refuted the technology and committed to making its new passenger cars battery-electric.
But despite the EV cheerleaders of charging companies, electric vehicle makers and owners, and doctrinaire governments and bureaucracies, hydrogen won’t quite go away. Partly because it is a convenient buffer for renewable electric power (although the electric car industry claims that the growing population of EVs plugged into chargers could do the same thing), partly because batteries just don’t cut it in commercial vehicle markets – particularly where heavy loads meet long distance and time-critical delivery.
Hydrogen is useful because it can be stored as a liquid or gas, then trucked or piped to where it is required. It can be used in fuel cells, injected straight into a reciprocating piston or a rotary engine such as demonstrated by Mazda, or used to manufacture e-fuels which can be used by the existing car fleet, including classics. It can be diluted in natural gas and then extracted and used for cars, commercials or home heating. It can be burned in turbofan engines for airlines, it also has markets in marine, static power, construction and rail industries, where batteries are expensive and/or impractical.
It also has a potential role in endurance racing, where sometime in the next decade it will be an option for teams contesting endurance races such as the Le Mans 24 Hours. At the recent Paris Motor Salon, Alpine, Renault’s sporting division, unveiled the Alpenglow concept, a 340bhp, 2.0-litre racing car study. No commitments to the fuel were issued, but a hydrogen-sipping V6 engine is due later this year.
Philippe Krief, Alpine’s CEO, acknowledged that the Alpenglow “was more an adventure in engineering rather than a real project”, but then said that within 15 months his company would be evaluating the fuel for a road-legal car, although it would be keeping an eye on the development of the hydrogen refuelling structure as it evolves under recent EU requirements.
The latest European directive about infrastructure is a commitment to provide 700 bar (10,000 psi) hydrogen refuelling every 124 miles on Europe’s motorway network by 2030.
An EU report (A Hydrogen Strategy For A Climate-Neutral Europe) acknowledges the ambitious nature of the plan, but states that hydrogen “can offer solutions for hard-to-abate parts of the transport system, in addition to what can be achieved through electrification and other renewable and low-carbon fuels”.
Toyota, too, sees a future for hydrogen in combustion engines; I drove its rally car concept at Goodwood 16 months ago. For motorsport, burning hydrogen has the advantages of being noisy, which goes down well with spectators (and drivers) and employs largely already existing technology for the teams.
It also requires far less cooling than the equivalent fuel cell, which has an optimum running temperature of 80C, which can be difficult to maintain in hot climates (fuel cells won’t generate electricity using steam). This means that fuel cell racing cars would have to carry huge heat exchangers to keep the cell cool.
But hydrogen in passenger cars? Don’t hold your breath, yet the idea has proved to have remarkable sticking power in industry. JCB has a combustion engine hydrogen strategy for its plant equipment for use in remote locations far from any charging infrastructure, looking at vans and perhaps even crew buses. Toyota is planning a production version of its fuel-cell Hilux pickup for net zero construction sites.
Last month Toyota and BMW signed a deal reaffirming their commitment to the hydrogen fuel cell. Respective bosses, Koji Sato and Oliver Zipse, shook hands in front of BMW’s HQ promising “to take their collaboration to the next level to produce fuel-cell electric vehicle options for passenger cars”.
To some extent this was BMW holding Toyota’s feet to the fire, since it plans to launch its first series production fuel-cell car in 2028. While Toyota’s fuel-cell Mirai has been available since 2014, sales have been slow, with only 21,475 finding owners by 2022.
Last year, Hiroki Nakajima, Toyota’s chief technology officer, admitted the car had been a financial flop. “Unfortunately, it [Mirai] has not been successful because of the hydrogen filling station point of view, there are few,” he said, adding, “so we have changed our strategy from passenger cars to commercials.”
BMW, however, has been positively gung-ho about its iX5 concept, taking Toyota’s fuel cell and pushing it harder than the Japanese firm ever dared. I drove the iX5 (based on the current X5 SUV) last year and found it to have performance, economy and refinement but, in Britain at least, virtually nowhere to fill up.
“In our industry timing is crucial,” said Michael Rath, BMW’s vice-president of hydrogen vehicles. “It is now time to unleash the full potential of hydrogen.”
Unfortunately the motor industry is very fond of this sort of hyperbole and then it changes its mind. The BMW Hydrogen 7, produced between 2005 and 2007, was powered by a V12 petrol engine burning hydrogen gas, which could reach the kind of thermal efficiency of the best turbodiesels of the time (about 42 per cent).
I drove it on several occasions and was mightily impressed with the engine but not the fuel, which was stored in a 170-litre Dewar flask in the car at minus 253C. Leave this BMW in a car park for a fortnight while you went on holiday and the fuel would boil off…
The buzz words here are “multi pathway approach”, which Toyota and BMW embrace. “You need to be flexible and open up alternatives,” says Rath. “We clearly see fuel cell EVs as valid.”
He’s not saying what sort of vehicle the iX5 might become for production, merely saying the iX5 concept is not a guide to what might go on sale, although the first vehicle in BMW’s Neue Klasse range due on sale next year is the X model, an SUV, which would be equally suitable for a fuel cell.
Rath says he can’t disclose a price yet (the Neue Klasse X is rumoured to start at £65,000), “but you can be sure it will be an attractive price in the end. We are open to the alternative technology and all the drivetrains will be available so that the customer can choose”.
The BMW-Toyota agreement shows that fuel-cell development is still forging ahead. Renault’s fuel-cell hybrid Emblème zero emissions concept, unveiled at the recent Paris motor show, is far from the only proposal for a fuel-cell future.
This autumn students at Coventry University’s Automotive and Transport Design course will be competing in a postgraduate competition to design a fuel-cell supercar for Riversimple, the British manufacturer of the fuel-cell Rasa urban car.
The result will be an unashamed concept, but designed to draw attention to the issue of burgeoning vehicle weight, which increases fuel consumption whatever the drivetrain, uses more resources to produce and creates more airborne particles from brake and tyre wear.
Target specifications include a carbon-composite body with inboard motors and brakes, along with lightweight fuel-cell technology and supercapacitors as energy buffers. It should accelerate from 0-60mph in 3.5sec, 0-100mph in 6.4sec, with a 29kW or 39kW fuel cell, the latter giving a 410-mile range. The target weight is 620kg, which is more than one tonne lighter than the lightest battery electric supercar, the Lotus Evija.
“This car is an antidote to excess and power for the sake of it, and is an opportunity to redefine sports cars for the 21st century,” says Hugo Spowers, Riversimple’s founder and chief engineer. He’s a canny and ingenious innovator, so expect some interesting ideas when the car appears.
Yet it’s likely that the commercial transport sector will drive improvements in the hydrogen refuelling infrastructure. The UK’s first large-scale deployment of HGVs powered by hydrogen fuel cells will commence in the Tees Valley this winter. The Tees Valley Hydrogen Vehicle Ecosystem (HYVE) Consortium is a modest £7 million project, funded by the Department for Transport, delivered by Innovate UK and hoping to attract more than £15 million of private investment. It will support the introduction and maintenance of fleets of fuel cell commercials in the area, as well as a new filling station at Exolum’s Riverside terminal.
Volvo has recently announced it will commence road testing of its hydrogen-burning high pressure direct injection (HPDI) combustion-engined heavy trucks in 2026, but van development is moving even faster.
Last month at the IAA Transportation show in Hannover Renault unveiled a prototype fuel-cell-powered Master van capable of a 435-mile range with charging in less than five minutes. Developed by HYVIA (a joint venture between Renault Group and Plug) over three years and built in a small production line at Renault’s Flins plant northwest of Paris, the van has a main battery pack with the hydrogen fuel cell used as a range extender for when the charge is low.
Fuel-cell van maker First Hydrogen has recently revealed a development programme in Canada. The UK and Canada-based company has conducted trials of its vans in the UK, but has had to decamp to Canada and Europe where interest in hydrogen light commercials is much greater.
In fact, Britain is lagging in the move to hydrogen and it’s difficult to determine why. One car maker with a viable production fuel-cell passenger car couldn’t persuade the administrators of the Tees Valley scheme to include its cars in the study, although such vehicles would help to establish the viability of the Exolum filling station.
One recent study suggested there are 1,150 fully operational hydrogen filling stations around the world, with the number growing fast. A July 2021 McKinsey report for the European Hydrogen Council, Hydrogen Insights, estimated there were a total of 359 major hydrogen projects around the world with a total associated investment through to 2030 amounting to $500 billion (£385 billion).
With renewable generation set to increase in the UK and the need for energy storage, surely it’s time for the state to get involved in infrastructure planning and investment as well as encouraging new uses for hydrogen fuel rather than forcing the stalled market in battery-powered EVs.
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