Hydrogen powered cars are the immediate solution to rising levels of pollution. A large number of the metropolitan cities in the world are struggling under the burden of an ever-increasing number of vehicles, which consequently lead to pollution. With the world starting to take note and try and rectify the mistakes, hydrogen fueled cars can go a long way.
These cars are powered by hydrogen. The hydrogen is burnt in the mechanical combustion unit to convert the chemical energy of hydrogen to mechanical energy, which powers the cars. The hydrogen reacts with the oxygen in the fuel cell, and the by-product doesn’t pollute the environment.
As of 2016, there are three varieties of hydrogen powered vehicles. Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai were the first companies to take a step towards a cleaner future by working on hydrogen-fueled cars. The Toyota Mirai, Honda Clarity, and Hyundai ix35 FCEV are the only three cars which run on hydrogen.
Toyota rolled out the Mirai in 2015, with a focus on California. Hyundai made a market for its FCV Tucson in the USA and ix35 outside the States. Even Honda rolled out Clarity, it’s FCV in 2015 and even began shipping it to other countries.
With companies realizing the importance of a hydrogen economy, more and more car manufacturers are coming out to propose hydrogen fueled cars. Reports suggest that 95% of the hydrogen used in these vehicles are produced from natural gasses and is a renewable process. However, the process is expensive, and this is what prevents a lot of companies from investing in such vehicles.
Given the high cost of production, the vehicles are expensive and so is the process of refueling. Companies are working on developing cheaper options for manufacturing hydrogen which would bring down the cost of production of the vehicle. Another problem that they have to tackle in the number of fueling stations.
According to the Green Car Report, there are 33 hydrogen stations in the USA, which are accessible to the public. The majority of these are in the state of California since Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai has started running their hydrogen fueled cars primarily in the state. In fact, California is the only state which operates hydrogen powered vehicles.
The primary reason for California being the only state with hydrogen-fueled cars is because it has available hydrogen fuel stations. Even though California has 33 fuel stations, they can offer most of them in the populated parts of the state, and the rest have a handful. Which again becomes an issue for travelers when they have to refuel.
Most of these fuel stations are also facing problems since operators struggle with dispensing a large amount of hydrogen to the end users. The government has come out to propose a plan where they will create a network of 100 hydrogen fueling centers in the state, by 2020.
Since car manufacturers are still looking to produce only a handful of hydrogen-fueled cars, experts believe that the 100 fueling stations will be sufficient to handle the demand. The only country which has an extensive network of hydrogen fueling stations is Denmark.
Information Trends reported that Germany would beat Denmark in the next six years since the German automatically companies are planning on releasing a large number of hydrogen-fueled vehicles. Mercedes-Benz is working on a GCL-Class vehicle with a fuel cell. Reports suggest that even Audi is working on FCVs in the same manner as Toyota, Hyundai, and Honda.