https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/07/stellantis-abandons-hydrogen-fuel-cell-development/
Stellantis abandons hydrogen fuel cell development

Finally, there's virtually no infrastructure for hydrogen road vehicles to refuel.

The vehicles are inefficient, and the fuel is expensive, difficult to store, and hard to find. So it's perhaps no wonder that someone at Stellantis finally saw sense. Between the high development costs and the fact that FCEVs only sell with strong incentives, the decision was made to cancel the production of hydrogen vans in France and Poland.

Stellantis says there will be no job losses at its factories and that R&D staff will be put to work on other projects.

What a huge waste of money.

 

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/07/stellantis-abandons-hydrogen-fuel-cell-development/
Stellantis abandons hydrogen fuel cell development


What a huge waste of money.

A pretty classic case of governments trying to impose relationships between technologies, economies, and populations that don't exist (instead of settling for nudging them about what they naturally are).

Assuming this technology had any potential future, the focus would have been on identifying niche markets that could benefit from any potential advantages while being able to mitigate against the near-term drawbacks. For instance, in-town fleets that could use a central refueling point for all of their vehicles while performing all operations that use them within their round-trip range. Or established longer haul carriers that have sufficiently stable and heavily utilized routes that would permit them to strategically position refueling points along them for the exclusive use of their vehicles. If the basic technology has any promise, you should be able to find enough early adopters that can ease their way into it without relying on widespread adoption of disruptive infrastructure (at someone else's expense).

Unfortunately, hydrogen as a fuel alternative is one of those things that people with poor critical thinking skills easily latch onto, which also tend to be the same kinds of people that think that it is feasible to simply legislate wishes into reality.

 

Petrol stations would love hydrogen to succeed , as they are set up for cars to stop a few minutes . And little space in general to expand .

 

Petrol stations would love hydrogen to succeed , as they are set up for cars to stop a few minutes . And little space in general to expand .

I don't think I would go so far as to say that they would love to see hydrogen succeed. Certainly the number of cars per hour than can be serviced for a given footprint is attractive compared to EV charging times, though those times are coming down and will probably continue to do so for a while. I doubt they will ever match petrol refueling times, but they will probably get within shouting distance, but the cost to the consumer per kWh at the higher charge rates currently often exceeds the comparable cost for petrol (in terms of dollars per mile driven). The cost of installing, maintaining, and operating hydrogen fueling capabilities is a lot higher than comparable petrol refueling. As for safety risks, it's a mixed bag with pros and cons for each. Gaseous hydrogen is typically stored at about 700 bar, which is over 10,000 psi, because that is the pressure used by most hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in order to get ranges comparable to petrol vehicles (300 to 400 miles). I've seen what happens when gas cylinders explode at only a quarter of that pressure, so I'm not to keen on being in a car with one in a crash, let alone spending much time in the vicinity of the tank sizes that a refueling station would need (they could use cryo storage, but that has it's own risks and costs).

So my guess is that petrol stations would prefer to see the status quo maintained.

 

So my guess is that petrol stations would prefer to see the status quo maintained.

The acceptable version of the ideal world for petrol stations is that bio-synthesis of hydrocarbon fuels could be made to operate on a commercial scale.

 

The acceptable version of the ideal world for petrol stations is that bio-synthesis of hydrocarbon fuels could be made to operate on a commercial scale.

Agreed, since from a practical perspective from their viewpoint, this would hopefully be maintaining the status quo, requiring relatively few changes to their equipment or procedures. This assumes that the biosynthetic fuel that is scalable is compatible with existing engine technology, which may or may not end up being the case.

But I'm not going to hold my breath -- like so many other technologies (flying cars, nuclear fusion, etc., etc.), it is always just ten years away.

 

But I'm not going to hold my breath -- like so many other technologies (flying cars, nuclear fusion, etc., etc.), it is always just ten years away.

10 years being just a little bit beyond the duration of a government grant.

 

The acceptable version of the ideal world for petrol stations is that bio-synthesis of hydrocarbon fuels could be made to operate on a commercial scale.

The lovely wife Morticia is planning her garden for next year. She wants to know where she can get diesel seeds.

 

She wants to know where she can get diesel seeds.

Lol.
If she plants LINSEED, she only needs to scrape off the N and thoroughly mix the residue to get DIESEL .

 

The lovely wife Morticia is planning her garden for next year. She wants to know where she can get diesel seeds.

The PLD Seed Company seems to have them... or at least they did around 1955...

​

 

Lol.
If she plants LINSEED, she only needs to scrape off the N and thoroughly mix the residue to get DIESEL .

Yes, you don’t want those Nitrogen compounds! (Otherwise you might get into the same mess as Volkswagen)

 

The lovely wife Morticia is planning her garden for next year. She wants to know where she can get diesel seeds.

I don't wish to spoil the humour, but we did make an off-grid power system where the generator ran on rapeseed oil, and if you live anywhere near where rape has been grown, it will find its own way into your garden. It should yield 125 to 160 gallons (not sure if that’s imperial or US) per acre, which is 6800 miles in my Jaguar XE.

 

So the 10x10 ft plot she dedicated will produce just over a quart by my calculation. I guess she should stick to tomatoes and squash.

 

It should yield 125 to 160 gallons (not sure if that’s imperial or US) per acre...

Per day? That's pretty awesome.

 

10 years being just a little bit beyond the duration of a government grant.

Does make you wonder....

I just did a quick search for how far away we were from commercial scale biofuel production in 1970 and, you guessed it, ten years.