Germany's first hydrogen filling station on the autobahn opens

[caraher]

5. Because it maintains a business model

The one thing hydrogen for transportation has going for it is a certain familiarity for the consumer. We buy a vehicle, drive it around, and every so often put a chemical fuel inside. That's what we do now.

With present battery technology, EVs require some changes of habit, because charging takes more time than fueling. I asked Steven Chu about the latest round of hydrogen hype and he told me the Toyota engineers with whom he'd spoken say it's all about the convenience and speed of refueling. They're betting that wins out over the other considerations.

It's hard to make money from charging batteries. By contrast, if you need to buy a specialized fuel, you become dependent on suppliers of that fuel. In this case, those suppliers are pretty powerful energy companies focused on fossil fuels. It would be more surprising if they just decided to fold up and say their era is ending.