30,000 H2 Vehicles Rather Than 2.8 Million: Sky-high Hydrogen Forecasts Could Hardly Be Further From Reality

If forecasts by consultancies from 2010 had come true, there would already be up to 2.8 million hydrogen vehicles on the roads. The reality is another story: the total number of H2 cars sold is just 30,000 – worldwide, that is. As a new infographic from Handelskontor shows, this low level of demand can only be partially explained by the lack of infrastructure. 

There are currently around 91 hydrogen filling stations in operation throughout Germany. A further 17 are being built. In the next few months, the infrastructure should have reached a sufficient level to enable over 6 million drivers to switch to hydrogen without the need for major detours, according to figures from h2.live.

There has been an awareness of the great potential of hydrogen mobility for some time now. In reality, however, the vehicles are only of marginal importance. But there are still many who haven’t written the technology off just yet. Current forecasts suggest that H2 vehicles will account for 3% of passenger car sales by 2030. Even this prediction may yet be shattered by reality.

The topic of hydrogen is currently playing a more prominent role on the stock exchange floor than it is in the automotive sector. Hydrogen shares have been booming for some time, although interest has waned noticeably here as well. The Google Trend Score for the search term pair „hydrogen shares“ is currently at 19, with a value of 100 representing the greatest possible relative search volume.

Electric vehicles are currently dominating both the roads and the stock market. For example, Tesla was able to increase its market capitalisation by 105.2% in the 12-month review, while H2 company Nel ASA lost 18.8% of its value.

According to Armin Laschet (CDU), the race for supremacy over the drive system of the future has not yet been decided. For his part, Tesla CEO Elon Musk seems to have emerged as the clear winner from the talks at the Gigafactory construction site near Berlin. Yet as the past has shown, just as forecasts carry a high potential for error, a reversal of the trend may come almost overnight.

Bildnachweis: Marcus Millo