this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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I have a photo of GM's fuel cell test vehicle driving on the highway from 2009, some 14 years ago. Most of the arguments against fuel cells are the cost and complexity of hydrogen, and the logistics of getting it around any given country. Those are not outdated, they are absolutely as true today as they were 15 years ago.
GM made a BEV back in the 1990s. They did a lot of things long before they were ready. The point you are missing is that cost is rapidly coming down. An FCEV will be no more expensive than an ICE car to make. People who continue to repeat the "high-cost" argument are just stuck in the past. A total repeat of what people said of BEVs too.
Let's grant your point about prices coming down, and let's say that a fuel cell, a small battery, and the fuel tank(s) is the same price or even cheaper than a BEV. Let's just take that as completely granted.
How about the cost of energy per kWh? Hydrogen is much more expensive than just buying the electricity. In Norway, right now, price of H2 is 195 NOK/kg or about $19.13 USD per kg. 1kg of H2 is 33.33 kWh, meaning it's about $0.574 USD per kWh for hydrogen. Even the most expensive DCFC don't sell for that price. Here in the US, the production costs alone, as reported by NREL, are well above the cost of traditional fuel and electricity based on using methane cracking with steam assuming we can make that commercially viable. Cracking the methane is much more expensive than just burning it to produce electricity, and that doesn't account for increasing nuclear or renewable energy sources on the grid.
On a per-kWh basis, a hydrogen fueled car will necessarily be more expensive to refuel than a BEV, while battery costs continue to decrease just as fuel cell costs have.