No, an all plug-in battery electric car future is NOT inevitable, as California hydrogen fuel cell push and other industry developments attest

If you think that plug-in battery electric vehicles are the inevitable automotive future in the U.S.—or anywhere else, for that matter—realize that it might still be just a little early to be counting your proverbial chickens. To carry the fowl metaphor a little further, various parts of the automotive and energy industries appear to be continuing to get their ducks in a row for hydrogen fuel cell technology as an important force in our transportation future.

Consider, for example, companies like Chevron, Shell, and Toyota, who, according to the California Hydrogen Coalition, are among companies joining forces in the cause of “enabling California’s transition to zero emission vehicles by expanding the availability of reliable, convenient and affordable hydrogen fueling.”

In a press release issued April 9, the California Hydrogen Coalition announced that kindred spirits including representatives of labor unions, automakers, and the hydrogen industry would be urging California legislators to increase funding for infrastructure to support hydrogen vehicles, through testimony at a joint hearing of the state’s Senate Transportation Committee and Senate Budget Subcommittee 2 on Resources, Environmental Protection and Energy.

The press release noted that California’s $2.4 billion in state support for battery electric vehicle charging infrastructure dwarfs the mere $190 million currently earmarked for hydrogen fuel cell infrastructure through 2023, under the state’s Clean Transportation Program.

Based on the registration just last month of their web domain—californiahydrogencoalition.org—the California Hydrogen Coalition appears to be a very recently formed organization.

According to their website, the Coalition is led by Executive Director Teresa Cooke, who also serves as policy director at the California lobbying firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, which includes the energy and mining industry among its key practice areas.

It is notable that the Toyota is the only specific automaker that the California Hydrogen Coalition website lists among its partners, given Toyota’s keen interest, as reported last year by AutoNewsblaster, in hydrogen fuel cells not only as an energy source for electric cars like the Toyota Mirai, but also as a fundamental general energy source, as modeled in their utopian “Town of the Future” prototype city in Higashi-Fuji, Japan.

While not as visibly pushing hydrogen fuel cells in the U.S. as Toyota, Stellantis (formerly FCA) has also made recent contributions to the hydrogen fuel cell bandwagon, hosting a recent press event in Paris to reveal what they call their Mid-Power Architecture, an ingenious hybrid approach that offers the fast refueling and extended range of a conventional hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, while also integrating a battery from the conventional plug-in hybrid architecture for additional power boost when needed, along with the capability to function as a pure battery-electric vehicle for about 30 miles.

The first production vehicles powered by this platform will be in medium vans to be sold in Europe under the Peugeot, Citroën, and Opel marque, according to a Stellantis press kit.  

Certain benefits of hydrogen fuel cell technology over the architecture of a plug-in battery electric car are clear. While they are refueled with liquid hydrogen at a pump, the similarity to gas-powered cars ends there. Hydrogen-powered vehicles do not have internal combustion engines: they are electric cars in every sense of the word.

But with motors propelled by electricity produced through energy from the chemical process of combining hydrogen and oxygen, hydrogen-powered cars can “cut the cord,” so to speak. They are not dependent on being plugged into an electrical supply source at a home or commercial charging station, and can be refueled as quickly as gas-powered cars.  If a sufficiently distributed liquid hydrogen refueling infrastructure is created, we have so-called “zero emission” electric cars, but with the benefit of “zero range anxiety” as well.

As the Union of Concerned Scientists has pointed out, however, the term “zero emissions” does deserve to be in quotes. It takes energy to isolate hydrogen, and that energy may in some cases come from natural gas, which, though cleaner than some of its fellow fossil fuels, is certainly not emission-free.

This is probably among the reasons why Tesla CEO Elon Musk has famously dismissed hydrogen fuel cell technology as “mind-bogglingly stupid.” But regardless of this public disparagement, it’s hard to imagine that a businessman as smart as Musk doesn’t see the benefits.

Let’s talk about “stupid” for a minute. Sure, plug-in electrics are great if you own a home with a garage or private driveway that makes it practical to run a cord from your car to connect to house current.

But how practical is that model for apartment dwellers and those who must park on-street? How realistic is it to expect, any time soon, a world in which the curbs of urban streets are lined with enough pole-mounted AC outlets to enable every car to plug in? And what’s the business model for collecting payments for all that juice? And is there any universe in which it is logical to think that this extraordinarily decentralized and redundant means of energy distribution would be more efficient than fueling up quickly at centrally located service stations that have been retooled to dispense liquid hydrogen?

Of course, companies like Chevron and Shell, who are emerging as supporters of the hydrogen fuel cell concept, have skin in the game, because their current business model of distributing fuel to gas stations where consumers fill up is already a good fit. And they’re still big enough to be able to put a lot of financial and influential muscle behind that support.

Returning to the fowl metaphor we started with, notwithstanding the dismissive comments from his mouth, it’s hard to imagine that Elon Musk could really be putting all of his eggs in the plug-in battery basket. Don’t be surprised if we one day find out that Tesla, secretly and behind the scenes, has been formulating contingency plans for retooling to build hydrogen fuel cell cars all along.

Yes, the day when vehicles powered by energy sources other than fossil fuels will be the majority of the market will almost certainly arrive, eventually. But it’s far from inevitable that the plug-in battery architecture will dominate that future.