Electric Cars Are All the Rage. Then Why Does Toyota Continue to Invest in Hydrogen?

The Japanese automaker is casting a wide net in the continued push for hydrogen.

Photo by Chandler Cruttenden on Unsplash

Tesla has single-handedly changed the future of cars, forcing the more traditional automakers to play catchup. Electric vehicles are now the mainstay of every automaker’s lineup. Even doubters like General Motors and Volkswagen (VW) are fast building their electric vehicle (EV).

But, one company is still digging its heels. The Japanese giant Toyota is not putting all its eggs on EVs. While they do plan to launch electric vehicles, they continue to bet strongly on fuel cells.

Why? Hasn’t the fuel cell tech lost the auto wars?

The fuel cell tech uses hydrogen

On paper, fuel cell technology is the perfect clean energy solution to fight climate change. Hydrogen in a liquefied form is passed through a fuel cell that produces energy to run a vehicle. Water is the by-product. Hydrogen packs more energy per unit mass than any other form of fuel.

While gasoline packs 46 MJ per kg of the fuel, hydrogen packs 120 MJ per kg, ~2.5 times more. So in an ideal world, less hydrogen would be needed to run the same vehicle than fossil fuels…