While there are many challenges to making hydrogen fuel cells ubiquitous, a couple really move the needle: energy efficiency, infrastructure, and costs.
Firstly, among eco-friendly engines, hydrogen is not the most energy-efficient fuel. Often, the most frequently cited reason why hydrogen cars were designed to fail is that hydrogen cars incur relatively high energy loss for their output. For example, Cinch notes that EVs can convert around 80% of the electricity in their battery to energy. On the other hand, hydrogen cars can only convert a maximum of 40%.
Second, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) shares that there are only 59 open retail stations in the United States in 2023. However, the DOE does reiterate not only is there an additional 50 stations in construction, but it also launched the H2USA program, a public-private collaboration addressing key challenges related to hydrogen infrastructure. However, hydrogen refueling sites arguably take up less space than EV charging, and refueling hydrogen-powered vehicles take up significantly less time than charging EVs. According to Toyota, filling up a hydrogen-powered vehicle takes only 3-5 minutes.
Lastly, high fuel costs can make them less affordable to the heavy-duty fleets GM plans to service. Although hydrogen fuel is abundant, the DOE states, “Because hydrogen contains less energy per unit volume than all other fuels, transporting, storing, and delivering it to the point of end-use is more expensive on a per gasoline gallon equivalent basis.”