Hydrogen always It was touted by automakers and politicians as a clean energy alternative for electric vehicles, but never really caught on. Don’t tell anyone at CES 2024, though, as this year’s show was packed with hydrogen-powered vehicles of all sizes.
In recent years there has been so much focus on battery-powered electric vehicles that it looked like hydrogen might be left in the proverbial dust. So is hydrogen energy coming back? Or is this yet another example of companies making promises at CES that they won’t be able to keep?
Let’s start by seeing what was on show this year.
Perhaps no company is more wedded to hydrogen energy than Nikolas. The trucking startup was founded around the idea of a fuel-cell big rig, and its former CEO Trevor Milton went to great lengths — to the point of criminal fraud charges — to promote it.
Nikola has spent the last few years trying to rebuild himself with Milton in the background. To do that, the startup shelved the hydrogen truck in favor of an all-electric version, which it began shipping in 2021.
At CES, Nikola finally showed off one of the first American-made hydrogen trucks it’s starting to ship to customers. If there’s a future where a redesigned Nikola helped usher in the proliferation of hydrogen-powered trucks, this is where it starts.
Another startup at the Vegas trade show, Croft Motors, is developing “robust” hydrogen-powered vehicles. The company is starting with a three-row SUV concept with an “expected range of 1,000 miles,” co-founder Isaac Holeman told TechCrunch.
Holeman believes that the recent slowdown in the adoption of battery electric vehicles has made it “the right time to rekindle this conversation” about the potential of hydrogen. Croft is also developing a refrigerator-sized device that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen (a process called electrolysis). Holeman argued that “distributed power products” like Croft’s will enable “rapid” adoption of hydrogen vehicles.
At the other end of the spectrum, established automaker Hyundai also seems to be embracing hydrogen in a new way.
The Korean automaker has spent decades working on hydrogen-powered vehicles and says the technology will play a “prominent role” in Hyundai Group’s drive to become a carbon-neutral company by 2050.
What it looks like involves not just an effort to popularize hydrogen-powered cars and SUVs, but the same for all the heavy-duty vehicles it makes. Hyundai says these construction vehicles are too large and require too much energy to run on a battery. Instead, the company argues that hydrogen makes more sense as a clean energy source. It’s worth noting that HD Hyundai, a construction equipment, refinery and shipping group spun off from its parent company in 2002, had one of the biggest displays at CES 2024.
“Our goal is building [an] the entire hydrogen energy ecosystem across the earth, from the ocean to the land,” said Dongwook Lee, president of HD Hyundai, during a press conference. He said Hyundai wants to integrate hydrogen power into everything it makes, from shipbuilding to construction machinery, and that it also wants to create production and storage solutions.
“It is already part of our short-term roadmap to commercialize alternative methods of producing clean hydrogen,” said Chang Hwan Kim, who oversees fuel cell and battery development at Hyundai. The executive said Hyundai is working to convert “sewage sludge and other forms of organic waste” into pure hydrogen.
Suppliers are also investing. Bosch, which already makes hydrogen fuel cells (like the one Nikola uses in its truck), has announced that it will build an engine that can burn hydrogen, bypassing the process where that energy is converted into electricity and stored in a battery. Truck maker PACCAR was also at the show with two of its newest hydrogen-powered trucks, one under the Kenworth brand and a Peterbilt. The company he said This week it received “more than 150 deposits” for hydrogen trucks in those two brands and that it expects to ship them next year.
Image credits: Natalie Christman for TechCrunch
Channeling Vegas more than others, South Korean energy and construction giant SK Group sought to advertise hydrogen and business artificial intelligence through a a kind of theme park at CES. The rides included a small train “powered by hydrogen energy” and an “AI seer”.
Why now?
There is political will and money. Federal investments in green hydrogen and refueling infrastructure—two major barriers to widespread adoption—are giving HFCVs a boost. This is crucial, given that almost all hydrogen fuel is produced with fossil fuels today, and there is currently little infrastructure to keep HFCVs running, whether for passenger cars or heavy-duty trucks.
First, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act of 2022 put $9.5 billion into “clean hydrogen initiatives“to create hydrogen production”nodesAcross the US Some of these hubs will create green hydrogen through renewables and electrolysis.
Hydrogen transportation is also being improved by the same legislation that incentivizes sales of battery electric vehicles. Along with the EV tax credit, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) created a hydrogen production credit, which offers producers as much $3 a kilo to offset the higher costs associated with clean hydrogen production.
As part of the IRA, the Federal Highway Administration announced during (although not in the) CES hundreds of millions of dollars for new charging and fueling infrastructure — with a huge chunk of that going to hydrogen.
There is also corporate interest from fossil fuel industrywhich he put tens of millions of dollars towards hydrogen lobbying efforts in the first three quarters of 2023. For example, Shell, BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil are all members of a pressure group called Clean Hydrogen Future Coalition. Despite its tidy name, the group argues that fossil fuels such as natural gas should play a role in the “clean hydrogen ecosystem” when combined with carbon capture technology. The problem is, chronic methane leakage along the supply chain, and although natural gas it doesn’t stick too much in the atmosphere, it is “80 times more powerful in warming than carbon dioxide,” per United Nations.
While there is corporate and political interest, hydrogen-powered vehicles remain relatively rare. The reasons are complex, but the lack of infrastructure is critical.
First, the US energy grid already exists. Although ancient, it is the backbone that supports tens of thousands of power stations across the country. Hydrogen refueling stations, on the other hand, are much more difficult to achieve.
Another reason is waste. Light hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are generally less efficient than battery electric vehicles, according to Gregory Keoleian, who co-directs Sustainable Systems and MI Hydrogen at the University of Michigan. About 30% of the energy required for electrolysis is lost, and further losses come from transporting, compressing and converting the hydrogen into electricity through a fuel cell. “So if you have limited renewable electricity, putting it into battery electric vehicles is going to be much more efficient for decarbonization,” Keoleian said on a call with TechCrunch.
And yet, as Hyundai, Nikola and other hydrogen-focused companies argue, the advantages of battery electric vehicles are not as pronounced in some areas. Keoleian explained: “For medium- and heavy-duty trucks, aviation and ships, hydrogen can play a decarbonizing role, especially where battery electric vehicles are problematic due to heavy loads, range and refueling time requirements.”
According to him, EV batteries are many times heavier than fuel cells and take hours to fully recharge. Refueling a hydrogen-powered vehicle, on the other hand, is about as time consuming as filling a conventional gas tank. The catch is that companies really need to make the fuel affordable and accessible, without prolonging our dependence on fossil fuels.
Production and distribution remains one of the biggest bottlenecks, according to Niklas Wahlberg, head of Partnerships and System Solutions at Volvo. But he says interest in the energy source is growing. “Hydrogen is increasingly becoming a tangible alternative,” says Wahlberg.
And while Nikola has become something of a badass poster child for hydrogen power in recent years, Wahlberg says he doesn’t think it’s really set the industry back. “Of course there will be companies that will have difficulties,” he says. “Things are going very well. And this is an area that we and others are very, very keen to develop.”
Updated January 12, 2024 with additional context by Gregory Keoleian.
