What is a hydrogen car?

30 July, 2021   By: Byron Mathioudakis

For more than a century, hydrogen has been touted as the ‘fuel of the future’, and for more than half of that time it has conjured up fear and mistrust. People associate hydrogen with disasters such as the Hindenburg airship of 1937 and thermonuclear weapons like the infamous ‘H Bomb’ of the Cold War era.

Little wonder hydrogen still has a big image problem, even to this day. Who’d want to place themselves and their loved ones inside a machine powered by the stuff?

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Yet hydrogen as used in fuel cells on a mass scale is one of the leading solutions to weaning society off fossil-fuelled vehicles globally. So, is the 2020s the decade for the mass production of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV)? Well, it could be.

You know it’s a big deal when Australia’s first (Toyota) and third (Hyundai) largest-selling carmakers are actively setting up and/or encouraging hydrogen infrastructure in this country as well as introducing their flagship HFCV models. And most other manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz have FCEV research and development programs that stretch back many decades.

Here, then, is the state of play with hydrogen FCEVs in Australia.

It all started with the ‘Big Bang’

Hydrogen is a chemical element that’s also the most abundant in the universe. It’s everywhere, and is believed to have been since the ‘Big Bang’, and it can be highly flammable in certain conditions.

An electric vehicle (EV) that is powered by hydrogen shares similarities with a battery-powered EV (BEV) like a Tesla Model 3, but there are some key differences.

Instead of the large battery pack you’ll find in EVs, FCEVs have a tank with either liquid or gas hydrogen, which is then fed into a fuel cell that in turn facilitates a chemical reaction to create electricity, to either instantly power the motor or be stored away in a much smaller and lighter battery pack.

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One of the benefits of a hydrogen FCEV is that water is the only emission produced while it is running. The time required to refuel FCEVs using hydrogen is also comparable to putting petrol in your tank.

For Australians right now, the main drawbacks of a hydrogen FCEV are vehicle availability and choice, vehicle costs, and hydrogen refuelling infrastructure, though these are not insurmountable given time, consumer acceptance and uptake.

Can you buy a hydrogen car right now?

As at mid-2021, there are no FCEVs of any variety that private buyers can purchase in Australia. Toyota is importing 20 of its Mirai FCEVs over the next three years, to lease them to companies like CSIRO, as well as “progressive businesses and organisations”. In the past, interested parties have included inner-city councils in Melbourne.

Similarly, Hyundai has around 20 or so of its Nexo FCEVs on offer, and is also leasing them out to interested firms. The latter isn’t saying how much, but the Toyota Mirai FCEV is on a $1,750 monthly term (including the price of the fuel) over three years or 60,000km to the aforementioned organisations. That’s $63,000, before having to hand back the car. There’s also a one-off servicing payment of $2,693.

It isn’t just Australia that’s missing out. Hydrogen vehicles are still very rare around the world, though they are commercially available in most mature markets like in Western Europe, Japan, United Kingdom and the United States, as part of a controlled and conditional lease program.

The big movers and shakers here are Toyota and Hyundai of course, as well as Honda, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, with Honda being first, having had the FCX Clarity and its successor on lease publicly in Japan and California since 2008.

Several other carmakers have provided FCEV prototype demonstrations, including Nissan, Audi, Ford, Mazda, Renault, Fiat, Chevrolet and Maxus (LDV), though most remain merely concepts and not vehicles the public can buy or lease.

Toyota has indicated that future larger SUVs are ideally sized and packaged to incorporate a hydrogen FCEV version, such as the all-new LC300 LandCruiser and its eventual Tundra large pick-up and even HiLux medium-sized pick-up offshoots.

In addition, 30 examples of Hyundai’s Xcient Fuel Cell truck, which is the world’s first mass-produced, heavy-duty truck powered by hydrogen, are set to begin a trial in California in the first half of 2023.

On the infrastructure front, only two hydrogen fuelling stations are available to the public – one in Canberra and the other at Toyota’s Australian headquarters at Altona, in Melbourne. The latter is currently only available for use via appointment and only during business hours, rendering it impractical. And while several more stations are planned, with Perth and Brisbane in line for their first in the coming months, these are obviously nowhere near enough.

It’s clear Toyota is heavily invested in the fuel on a major scale.

The cost of running a hydrogen car

There’s no ignoring the significant costs of going hydrogen. Let’s look at buying an FCEV outright.

While neither Toyota nor Hyundai is revealing the current unit cost of their lease vehicles in Australia (that is, what it might cost if it were available to purchase outright), in the US, a 2021 Mirai starts from US$49,500 and stretches to $66,000 for the highly-equipped Limited, which equates to between approximately $66,000 and $88,000 in Australian dollars, respectively. In other markets like Germany, that figure exceeds $120,000 per Mirai.

Affordability may also be assisted by any government subsidies and initiatives that may be put in place to encourage FCEV uptake.

Speaking of which, the Mirai’s cost in the US is subsidised by ‘complimentary fuel’ for up to six years or US$15,000, bringing the cost of ownership down. And there are scores of hydrogen refill station locations in California. Over 110 at last count.

It’s also worth remembering that, with increased production and the economies of scale kicking in, the unit price of FCEVs should start dropping dramatically. After all, just a decade ago, one of those prototype demonstration hydrogen cars were said to cost around $250,000 to $500,000 apiece, while that figure was over one million dollars per car some 20 years ago. Prices are falling.

Back to 2021, in Australia, Toyota estimates that the cost of filling up a Mirai (or Nexo, for that matter) is in the vicinity of around $80, and that’s for the Mirai’s three hydrogen tanks totalling 5.6kg (141 litres). It means about 650km of driving range is available between refills, for a combined consumption figure of 0.7kg/100km.

In other words, that cost-per-distance is comparable to filling up a petrol-powered car or SUV. It’s worth keeping in mind that, should demand for hydrogen skyrocket and filling stations proliferate, these prices could fall, along with the cost of FCEVs themselves as mentioned earlier. And, again, these are before any government help in terms of subsidies or tax breaks to encourage take-up, as happens in some other markets.

The hydrogen driving experience

Even more so than BEVs, the FCEV experience is very much like any modern internal combustion engine vehicle.

To begin with, the external proportions can be broadly similar, due to the need to house one or more electric motors (usually on each axle), as well as a number of hydrogen tanks.

More importantly, refuelling is a matter of sticking a bowser nozzle into a dedicated fuel flap, as per a petrol or diesel car. No plugging in, no recharging and no range anxiety should you run dry – as long as there are hydrogen stations available, of course.

As for everything else, well, it’s just like driving a regular contemporary car or SUV. The driver sits inside, belts up, pushes a button on the dashboard and the EV parts take over. The car is ready to move on, so ‘Drive’ is selected and away you go.

FCEVs are quiet and seamless in their operation like EVs, because they have fewer moving parts and no internal explosions every millisecond like all petrol, diesel and gas-fired engines do. Also, like most EVs, FCEVs have one-speed direct-drive transmissions, so gearchanges won’t be felt. This in turn promotes a more serene and less fatiguing travelling experience, for both driver and passengers alike.

Like all EVs, having fewer components that don’t need any regular servicing or replacement means that maintaining an FCEV is cheaper than in an equivalently priced and sized internal combustion engine vehicle.

Not much is known of what the nitty gritty of running a hydrogen vehicle will be like a few years down the track, except that Toyota is offering a warranty in North America that aligns with its other models like the Prius, RAV4 Hybrid and Camry. These include an eight-year/160,000km warranty on all the fuel cell-related components, a 10-year/240,000km on the fuel-cell battery, and a five-year/100,000km warranty on the powertrain.

What’s happening in WA?

The Coalition government in Canberra wants to produce hydrogen using natural gas, which is a fossil fuel and not renewable energy.

In contrast, the WA government’s Western Australian Renewable Hydrogen Strategy – established in 2018 – is relying on wind and solar renewable energy to power the electrolysis process required to create hydrogen. This is more environmentally sound, as it does not produce carbon emissions.

This in turn opens up significant and growing export market potential to Asian markets seeking a greener alternative, providing a way for WA to capitalise on its resources and show the federal government how to produce hydrogen in the cleanest possible way. It also makes WA more self-sufficient from an energy-security point of view.

If the infrastructure follows, then there could well be hydrogen vehicles in our near future.