It’s Personal

Ein Elektroauto wurde 2019 zum „Auto des Jahres“gekürt. Was aber ist mit den Fahrzeugen, die mit Wasserstoffbrennstoffzellen betrieben werden und einem E-auto in mancher Hinsicht überlegen sind?

Elisabeth Ribbans on hydrogen cars

There is more to life than increasing its speed.” So said Gandhi, and so repeat I quite frequently. I’m the last one down a mountain on skis, I’d choose a train over a plane every time if it were possible and I have no interest in fast cars. For me, a VW Golf beats a Maserati any day. It’s perhaps surprising to hear that, at one time, I (happily) spent a lot of time at automotive conferences and in car factories. When I lived in Germany, I wrote about sustainable business and was fascinated by the innovation happening in European car manufacturing. I believe I was one of the first journalists to see, around the turn of the millennium, the prototype Mercedes hydrogen fuel-cell car with nothing but clear water dripping from its exhaust.

In the quest for zero emissions, there was also much to report on developments in battery electric vehicles, but deep down, I think hydrogen had my heart as the technology of the future and I was confident that, by now, we’d all be in cars powered by the most abundant chemical element in the universe.

So, when the all-electric Kia e-niro won the prestigious 2019 “Whatcar? Car of the Year” award — not just best eco-car but the best car — I wondered what had become of the hopes for hydrogen.

There are now around 200,000 electric vehicles (EV) in Britain, where the EV market has recorded its seventh consecutive year of growth, against an overall car market that has been falling. In the US, the number of EVS passed the one million mark in 2018. New York and London have both seen a tenfold increase in EV numbers over the past five years.

By contrast, the fact that only 6,500 hydrogen fuelcell cars had been sold worldwide to 2018 could suggest the race is won. But remember the tortoise and the hare.

Hydrogen cars, which are quick to refuel and capable of long distances, have been slow to arrive for many reasons, including difficulties in making, storing and delivering the hydrogen gas. However, in a recent analysis, Reuters said it expected the global fuel-cell vehicle market to “flourish” in the next five years. Innovation was accelerating, it said, and growth was “aggressive”.

Two years ago in Davos, a group of CEOS, convinced of hydrogen’s key place in a post-carbon economy, set up the Hydrogen Council; it now includes 53 top companies. Meanwhile, Japan, home of leading fuel-cell carmaker Toyota, plans to build 80 hydrogen filling stations by 2022 as part of its ambition to become the world’s first “hydrogen society”. To those who have written off hydrogen cars, I’d simply say: check your rear-view mirror.