Battery Electric or hydrogen electric?
Why the “or” in that question should be “and”
Hydrogen fuel cells shine where weight matters most—like powering a 44-tonne truck with zero emissions, no payload loss, and quick refueling.
In the past, when I told people I was working on a project for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCEVs), they would quite often give me a long spiel about how they didn’t like batteries, and hydrogen power would be a much better solution for all road transport.
Even as a hydrogen enthusiast, I can’t say I agree. To see why, let’s look in very simple terms at hydrogen’s strengths and weaknesses compared to batteries:
Pros
The lightest atom in the universe, it is incredibly energy dense by weight. The exact figure is the equivalent of 33.3 kWh/kg – that compares to a typical current battery pack with 0.2kWh/kg.
Relatively simple to produce using renewable energy to electrolyse water. Green hydrogen production has no harmful emissions, unlike mining lithium, cobalt or any other of the critical minerals required by current batteries.
Quick to refuel. It’s not quite as quick as petrol, because it has to be handled at high pressure, but it still only takes 5-15 minutes depending on the size of the vehicle.
Cons
Fuel cells are still very expensive. However, that is only because they involve complicated manufacturing processes being done at low volumes. There is nothing intrinsically expensive in a fuel cell (apart from a tiny amount of platinum – but then there is a tiny amount of platinum in a catalytic convertor). By the early 2030s, a fuel cell should cost broadly the same as a Euro 7 petrol or diesel engine.
Storing hydrogen is a problem. Cars need a minimum of 350 bar (350 times atmospheric pressure), and preferably 700 bar. That takes very sophisticated and expensive tanks. Unlike fuel cells, it is hard to see how tanks get much cheaper over the next 10 years. Some are experimenting with solid-state storage at atmospheric pressure, but that is at a very early stage.
There is no current distribution system for hydrogen. However, there is no reason why we cannot create one – we distribute natural gas via pipelines and gas is a hydrocarbon i.e. hydrogen plus carbon. Hydrogen can use much of the same infrastructure. Given renewable energy, it would also be possible to generate hydrogen on site, and get rid of the distribution problem. Unlike oil or gas, hydrogen can be produced pretty well anywhere.
So putting the above issues together, what is a reasonable conclusion?
Logically, the weight benefit of hydrogen gets more attractive as the vehicle gets heavier. A BEV 44 tonne truck would need 1200kWh to travel 800km – that is seven tonnes of batteries. The mineral requirements for each battery pack would be horrendous, and the charging time would be prohibitive at anything under 1000 kW – and we struggle to install 300kW chargers for cars. Hence a fuel cell 44 tonne truck looks very attractive indeed – potentially offering no loss of payload and no problems with recharging.
For a typical family car (let’s say a Ford Puma or a Nissan Qashqai), the weight issue is not that important. We already have BEV cars, so it is harder to see what problem fuel cell vehicles are solving. They would increase range and cut charging time, but by 2030, we will be used to driving BEVs, and the advantages probably won’t be enough to make us change from BEV to FCEV.
Hence hydrogen doesn’t really compete with batteries – it complements them by enabling zero emission vehicles that are not suitable for batteries. It is like a lock that can only be opened by two keys. BEV enthusiasts shout that they have a key, and FCEV enthusiasts do the same. It’s only when they work together that the door to completely zero emission transport can be unlocked.
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