Quebec Spent Years & Millions On Hydrogen Cars No One Drove
Refueling station was subsidized by about $500 per kilogram of hydrogen pumped and didn’t work a third of the time
A year ago, I was having fun with the Odyssey of the Hydrogen Fleet, a tragicomedy in six parts. One of the many enactments of this tragicomedy had left Act 5, where the hydrogen fleet is permanently parked. The provincial government of Quebec quietly returned roughly 50 fuel cell cars they’d leased to Toyota.
I had assumed that like many pilot initiatives, the results would never be made public, but today a Quebec correspondent shared the report with me. It doesn’t look good for hydrogen light vehicles, but that’s unsurprising.
Let’s start with a reminder of the tragicomedy’s parts. In act one, oil-slicked lobbyists push for hydrogen transportation funding and pilots. In Act 2, well-intentioned but STEM- and economics-illiterate government apparatchiks are seduced and unlock big pots of money. Act 3 sees a fleet operator, cash-strapped, salivating over the big pots of money and buying a hydrogen fleet and attendant expensive pumping…
