The destination was Amsterdam. The outcome: a forced return to Brussels out of fear we'd be stuck in the Dutch countryside with an empty hydrogen tank.

Driving a hydrogen car in Europe today is a high-risk endeavor thanks to a dearth of refueling stations that turns every longer trip into a blood pressure-raising planning exercise.

Hydrogen-powered cars are seen as a potential solution to the pollution emitted by gasoline and diesel engines, but barely any such cars have been sold. Sluggish sales numbers mean few want to invest in hydrogen refueling stations, and the lack of such stations makes buying a hydrogen car very risky.

Now, the industry is turning to the EU and to national governments in a bid to break that chicken-and-egg dilemma.

The next European Commission is expected to propose an update to the EU’s gas market to make room for green gases such as hydrogen. It's meant to help decarbonize various EU industries, including transport. National governments are also spending to promote more filling stations.

“It’s clear there will be no more cars and there's not going to be lower prices if there’s not going to be the necessary infrastructure making it possible to drive these cars,” Henrik Hololei, the director general of the Commission’s mobility and transport department, told POLITICO. “There is much more to be done in that respect and I hope it will also be high on the agenda of the next Commission.”

Hunting for hydrogen

At the end of 2018, there were 172 hydrogen stations in Europe, according to the International Energy Agency. Germany is by far the most developed market with 69 stations, followed by 23 in France, 20 in the U.K., 10 in Denmark, and a few each in Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, Latvia and the Czech Republic.

But that’s not nearly enough to enjoy an anxiety-free ride.

“If we want hydrogen mobility to complement properly battery mobility, there needs to be country-wide network deployment. We need help to do that,” said Pierre-Etienne Franc, vice president in charge of hydrogen in the French group Air Liquide, which operates 32 such stations in Europe.

“We want to stop running in a circle, we want to start building the infrastructure” — Jonas Cautaerts, business developer at DATS24

But it’s not just a question of numbers. The problem — as we found out in Rotterdam when our tank was half empty — is that some of the hydrogen stations that Air Liquide has partnered with require a special membership card, something we didn't have.

With enough hydrogen to drive to Amsterdam, but not enough to return to Brussels, we had to U-turn home.

Our ride was a €69,000 Hyundai Nexo, the second-generation hydrogen vehicle released by the South Korean carmaker last year. Hyundai, along with Japanese rivals Toyota and Honda, are among the few producers who still think there's a future for hydrogen, while other manufacturers move toward electric vehicles (EVs).

The Nexo drives like a conventional SUV, and gets 660 kilometers on a tank.

But there are only two refueling stations near Brussels — creating a dilemma for the industry: do more hydrogen cars spur the growth of stations or vice-versa?

“We want to stop running in a circle, we want to start building the infrastructure,” said Jonas Cautaerts, business developer at DATS24, the fuel business of Belgian retailer Colruyt Group.

The company has a hydrogen fueling station in Halle, about 20 kilometers south of Brussels, near one of its grocery stores — and is planning four more in Belgium as part of an EU-funded project.

That's where we had to fill up at night on our way back to Brussels after failing to do so in Rotterdam.

The station is an extension of a hydrogen production unit the company uses to fuel its car fleet as well as its forklifts. It sources its hydrogen through an on-site wind farm.

Green hydrogen

Although neither EVs nor hydrogen cars emit any pollution, the source of their fuel can be dirty. An EV recharged with electricity from a wind farm is clean, one recharged from a coal-fired power plant — not so much. The same applies to hydrogen.

Currently, the vast majority of hydrogen is made by breaking down natural gas, which generates CO2 as a byproduct. A cleaner version, dubbed "green" hydrogen, is made by using electricity to break apart water into hydrogen and oxygen, a process known as electrolysis. If the power is supplied by renewables, like at our station in Halle, it can be emission-free.

Hydrogen-backers argue that it's an attractive technology once the teething problems are resolved.

“It’s absolutely essential to embrace all alternative fuels. There is no silver bullet, there is not one solution” — Henrik Hololei, European Commission official

Both hydrogen and electric vehicles are vying for the mantle of the technology that will replace combustion engines, but so far EVs are running away with the game.

The lack of hydrogen stations undercuts one of the main arguments in favor of hydrogen over electric cars — that they're much faster to refuel, and so shouldn't have the range anxiety that is common for battery-powered car owners. The fast chargers now appearing at filling stations can bring an EV's charge to 80 percent within about 30 minutes, while a home charger can fully recharge a battery in about four hours. Filling a hydrogen car takes five minutes — if you can find a station.

That's had an impact on sales.

In the first quarter of this year, 91.5 percent of new car registrations were for gasoline and diesel, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. Battery-powered car sales were up 84 percent to 61,789 — accounting for 1.5 percent of car registrations.

That's not much, but hydrogen is doing significantly worse.

There were only 1,418 hydrogen vehicles on the road in Europe — including private cars and commercial fleets — as of the end of 2018, according to the International Energy Agency.

“I understand the dilemma of European carmakers who are now rushing from the conventionally-powered car to the electric car because there has been a lot of pressure on that,” Cautaerts said.

“But they should have a much wider picture and hydrogen should be part of that.”

Changing that would require a huge investment in fueling stations.

There is some movement, but it's still small considering the scale of the market. Hydrogen Mobility Europe, a pan-European project supported by EU money, said this week it has deployed close to 500 hydrogen cars and 30 hydrogen refueling stations since 2013. Its goal is 49 fueling stations and 1,400 hydrogen cars and vans by 2022.

This €170 million demonstration project is co-funded with €67 million from the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking, a public-private partnership. The goal is to invest €1.3 billion by 2020.

Franc, the Air Liquide executive, estimates that once a country the size of France or Germany has 1,000 hydrogen-fueling stations — enough to supply about 500,000 cars — it would no longer be a problem for consumers to opt for hydrogen instead of petrol or diesel vehicles. That would require about €2 billion in investments, he said.

Getting that cash is the problem.

“It costs such an amount of money that it cannot be taken by Air Liquide alone or by a car manufacturer. It needs to be a shared risk with some mitigation by European policymakers,” Cautaerts said.

It’s a challenge for carmakers, too.

“We would have something that is comfortable with a number of maybe 5,000 stations across Europe … You have to have one or two stations in the vicinity of where you live,” said Jan Burdinski, executive director of Hyundai Motor Europe.

That's why they're hoping Brussels and national capitals will come to hydrogen's rescue.

“It’s absolutely essential to embrace all alternative fuels,” Hololei said. “There is no silver bullet, there is not one solution.”

As for us, although we didn't make it to Amsterdam that evening, we at least made it home.

Maybe next time we'll reach Amsterdam — hydrogen stations permitting.

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