Hydrogen fuel call cars explained: Should I buy a hydrogen fuel cell car?

Hydrogen cars aren’t a new concept but progress has been slow compared with that of electric cars.
Cutting carbon emissions is the primary goal within the automotive industry, and hydrogen fuel cell technology is our best bet for carbon-free tailpipe emissions combined with a much lower overall carbon footprint for the vehicle, so where are all the hydrogen cars we were told we would be driving by now? There are currently only two hydrogen cars available in the UK automotive market: the Toyota Mirai and the Hyundai NEXO. However, the Winter Olympics 2022 in China showcased that hydrogen-powered vehicles are a viable alternative to their electric counterparts, with over 800 hydrogen buses and thousands of hydrogen cars serving the Olympics. The UK government has also recently backed a £9bn investment into the development of the hydrogen sector, so why haven’t hydrogen fuel cell cars taken off in the UK? Interested in hydrogen cars? The Toyota Mirai and the Hyundai NEXO are available to buy or lease on Auto Trader now.

In scientific terms, a fuel cell cleanly creates electricity by using the chemical energy of hydrogen or other fuels and it can have a wide range of uses, for example to power something as small as a laptop or as big as a power station. In a hydrogen fuel cell, the only products emitted are electricity, heat and water, so it’s a clean source of energy.

Hydrogen fuel cell cars are generally more expensive to buy than electric cars.
Working out relative running costs depends on what you’re paying for fuel. In the UK, hydrogen costs about £12 per kg, which means a 62-mile (100km) journey in the Hyundai NEXO, for example (which does 0.95kg/100km), will cost around £11.40. An equivalent diesel car (doing 4.4-litres/100km) would cost around £5.81 for a 100km journey (diesel at £1.32 a litre), with a petrol-powered car (5.6-litres/100km) costing around £7.11 for that 100km (petrol at £1.27 a litre). Find out how much you could save by switching to EVs here.

Unless you live locally to a hydrogen refuelling station, it’s just simply not feasible to own a hydrogen-powered car in the UK.
In a future where hydrogen refuelling stations are accessible, fuel cells could be the answer. In 2021, the UK government outlined their net-zero strategy alongside their UK hydrogen strategy, meaning that money is being pumped into research so that clean hydrogen energy can play a much bigger role in our lives in the future.

Hydrogen cars have several advantages over similar petrol or diesel models:
• Hydrogen fuel cells produce no exhaust emissions apart from water, so it’s a clean way to power a vehicle. • Hydrogen cars can accelerate faster than an equivalent petrol or diesel car. • It’s the most environmentally friendly solution, in terms of cradle-to-grave footprint • Hydrogen is the most abundant naturally occurring element in existence, so once the technology is perfected, it will likely become the most sustainable energy source.

Hydrogen cars also come with their own disadvantages:
• Not enough hydrogen refuelling stations – as there are only 15 refuelling stations nationwide, driving a hydrogen car in the UK wouldn’t be a practical option unless you’re local to one. • Hydrogen fuel cell cars require more manufacturing materials than electric cars, so although there are no harmful emissions from the exhaust, hydrogen cars have an increased impact on the environment during their lifecycle. • The production of hydrogen is less efficient than the production of electricity.

Refuelling at a hydrogen refuelling station takes the same time as refilling your tank with petrol or diesel, and the range of a fuel cell is generally greater than the average battery-electric car.
So, in theory, there's no range anxiety with a hydrogen powered car. In practice, however, due to the lack of hydrogen infrastructure across the UK, if you don’t live near one, it won’t be feasible for you to drive a hydrogen fuel cell car.

The truth is, although there may be no carbon emissions from the tailpipe, battery electric vehicles and fuel cell electric vehicles are pretty much neck and neck when it comes to carbon emissions, over the course of their life cycles. For a start, the electricity used to recharge electric cars has a carbon dioxide (CO2) contribution.
There are other issues with the batteries and the motors that drive the cars, too. As well as lithium, batteries and electric motors are full of minerals and metals that are mined in countries with poor human rights records and high energy consumption. There's also the problem of what to do with the batteries at the end of their lives. Some can have a second life as buffers for solar and wind-generated electricity or domestic power banks, but eventually, they all have to be broken down and not every component can be recycled. By contrast, fuel cells are recyclable using known technology. Learn more about electric car batteries here

Yes and no.
Yes, because there's a pleasing engineering simplicity about hydrogen fuel cells; you start with water, which undergoes the process of electrolysis using surplus off-peak grid electricity, separating it into hydrogen and oxygen. You then feed these elements into a hydrogen fuel cell, which only emits water and electricity. Hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) are categorised as ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEVs) because water vapour is the only substance emitted from the exhaust. Although there are zero carbon emissions emitted from the exhaust, the production of hydrogen cars is a long way from the carbon neutral targets the automotive industry currently has set. Most supplies of hydrogen are currently steamed out of natural gas, using a process called steam methane reformation. As natural gas is a fossil fuel, there's only a small environmental benefit in a fuel cell. However, governments are currently funding research into hydrogen fuel cell technology, so there could be improvements in this area just over the horizon. Find more content about eco-friendly cars here.

Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) have been proven to be as safe as conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) and plug-in battery electric vehicles (BEVs) have. Manufacturers such as Toyota and Hyundai have spent many years intensively testing hydrogen-powered cars in extreme climates and conditions to ensure they are safe and reliable.
However, pressurised hydrogen is dangerous and in certain concentrations, it can explode. Hydrogen burns with a low radiant heat, though, which means you probably won’t get burned unless you are close to it. In various puncture and crushing tests, the pressurised hydrogen tanks in modern fuel cell cars vent the gas to air quickly. By contrast, lithium-ion batteries can short circuit and go into what is termed 'thermal overload'. And of course, and petrol and diesel vehicle fires aren't unknown, either. According to Toyota, the hydrogen tanks inside the Toyota Mirai are multi-layered, making them so strong that they can even repel a close-range bullet shot.

Not yet, unfortunately. Hydrogen infrastructure in the UK is slowly gaining momentum, so we’d expect to more hydrogen refuelling stations along the roadside before they become home installable.
It’s still early days in terms of hydrogen technology, so with advancements on the horizon, the possibilities could be endless.

In short: the fuel cell is used to produce an electrochemical reaction within a hydrogen car.
In full: fuel cells convert chemical energy (hydrogen, in this instance) directly into electrical energy, emitting only water and heat in excess. As the chemical energy in hydrogen converts into mechanical energy, by reacting hydrogen with oxygen in the fuel cell, it creates the power which drives the electric motors to propel the car in place of an internal combustion engine (ICE). Similar to a battery, a fuel cell has an anode (positively charged terminal) and a cathode (negatively charged terminal), with an electrolyte situated in between. It differs from a battery in that a fuel cell doesn’t store energy within its cells; A hydrogen fuel cell only converts energy – in this case, hydrogen into electricity. As with ordinary batteries, a singular fuel cell isn’t able to create a huge amount of electricity by itself, therefore a number of cells are combined into fuel cell stacks in order to generate the required voltage. Inside the fuel cell stack, hydrogen is sent to the anode which, once reacted, is divided into hydrogen ions and electrons. The negatively charged cathode then attracts the positively charged hydrogen ions, forcing the ions to pass through the PEM which only allows hydrogen ions through. As the PEM doesn’t allow electrons to pass through, they’re forced to redirect their route to the cathode via an external circuit, creating an electric current that provides propulsion to the vehicle or charges an onboard battery. The leftover hydrogen then combines with the oxygen in the air outside, creating water (H2O) which leaves via the exhaust.

The adoption of electric cars in the UK has gained momentum over the last year or two, with charging networks popping up across the country, but currently, there are only 15 hydrogen refuelling stations across the whole of the UK, compared to over 42,000 electric charge points currently available.
Another argument that’s often made against hydrogen cars is that they’re less efficient than electric cars. That’s because the hydrogen required to power the vehicle isn’t naturally occurring, meaning it has to be extracted and then compressed for use in fuel tanks. This hydrogen then must be mixed with oxygen inside a fuel cell to create electricity to power the car. Throughout this process, efficiency is reduced dramatically when compared with recharging electric cars, whereby the electricity is transferred via the mains. However, what is lost in efficiency could be made up for in sustainability. Hydrogen is the cleanest fuel possible, thanks to its abundance as a naturally occurring gas. The production of lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars emits several tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, due to the energy required for the extraction of the raw materials. Therefore, even if an electric car is charged using zero-emission sources over its lifetime, it will still contribute to overall CO2 emissions.

As the industry aims to slash carbon emissions, UK chemicals multinational Johnson Matthey is set to build an £80 million hydrogen Gigafactory in southern England to produce hydrogen fuel cells, with the backing of the UK government.
Plans for the new Hertfordshire facility were announced as UK Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng sets out the details of the government's vision to channel £9bn of investment into the UK’s lacking hydrogen sector and the Gigafactory will be designed to manufacture 3GW of PEM fuel cell components each year for hydrogen cars. Industry forecasts from the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) indicate that the UK will require 14GW of fuel cell stack production and approximately 400,000 high-pressure carbon fiber tanks each year in order to meet demand by 2035, as it’s expected that there could be as many as three million FCEVs on our roads worldwide by 2030.

Hypothetically speaking, in a hydrogen economy, hydrogen would replace the fossil fuels that currently provide 80 per cent of the world’s energy supply and emit the bulk of global greenhouse gas emissions. This could aid climate goals because hydrogen only emits water when burned and can be made without releasing CO2.
Whilst the hype for hydrogen cars hasn’t quite caught on in the UK yet, countries such as China have spent millions investing in hydrogen technology, which is believed to be an industry with limitless potential. Hydrogen could be a vital key to creating a truly sustainable automotive market. What do you think? Watch our video and sound off in the comments.

Interested in hydrogen cars? Check out the Toyota Mirai and the Hyundai NEXO on Auto Trader now, available to buy or lease.