Forget passenger cars, here’s where hydrogen make sense in transport

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Earth Day is April 22, and its usual message—take care of our planet—has been given added urgency by the challenges highlighted in the latest IPCC report. This year, Ars is taking a look at the technologies we normally cover, from cars to chipmaking, and finding out how we can boost their sustainability and minimize their climate impact.

You can understand why the idea of a hydrogen-powered car is appealing. Humans aren't great at accepting change, but we do find comfort in the familiar. Being told that our transport must decarbonize means more change. While electric vehicles are better at almost everything, even the world's biggest EV evangelist must concede that charging a car takes longer than filling a fuel tank. Hydrogen can be pressurized and pumped, and hydrogen can be clean, therefore hydrogen-powered cars make sense, the argument goes.

That's probably all the prompt any regular Ars Technica reader needs to list the reasons why hydrogen is a non-starter. Like mammals after the Chicxulub asteroid, battery electric vehicles are poised to fill the niches soon to be left by the dinosaurs, in this case fossil fuel-powered vehicles, leaving alternative fuels like hydrogen evaporating into thin air.