Will Hydrogen-Powered Vehicles Become Part Of Future Mobility?

The automotive industry has been witnessing development of several alternate fuels for the energy source of vehicles, but there is one source that has been waiting to become the next big technology. We are talking about hydrogen as a fuel as well as hydrogen fuel cells as an energy source for vehicle propulsion.

- Naveen Arul

The most widely talked about hydrogen vehicle propulsion technology is hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCV). Toyota Motor Corporation, Honda Motor Company, and Hyundai Motor Company have been the leading OEMs developing hydrogen fuel technologies. However, over the past few years, a number of other companies have also focussed on developing hydrogen-based propulsion systems and technologies through a large number of collaborations.

The hydrogen fuel revolution received a major push in 2015 when Toyota decided to offer free access to its intellectual properties around hydrogen fuel cell technologies. While this initiative put the company at the forefront of all hydrogen-related development work, it provided the automotive industry with a wealth of knowledge on this technology and enabled other stakeholders to assist in its further development.

HYDROGEN PROPULSION SYSTEMS

Hydrogen can be burned in an internal combustion engine to convert its chemical energy into mechanical energy. However, the largely-adopted form of hydrogen as a fuel is in the case of FCVs. Therefore, it is appropriate to say that hydrogen vehicles are essentially electric vehicles since they are powered by an electric motor to drive the wheels. Fuel cell vehicles combine hydrogen and oxygen to produce mechanical energy, which is subsequently used to power an electric motor. However, the driving range and refueling processes of such vehicles are more comparable to conventional internal combustion engine vehicles.