So, this is awkward, and, again, I’m not here to preach. But the reason you’re not driving one yet is that you didn’t really care about this until (hopefully) now. Up until now, you’ve been focused on touchscreens and sound systems. You were too busy looking at the details to notice that the thing you were standing on wasn’t just a big rock. But fuel cells themselves aren’t new. In fact, fuel cells have been around for more than a century, having been used already on both commercial satellites and the Apollo spacecrafts. What’s more, the U.S. currently produces, processes, and uses about 9 million tons of hydrogen per year. So neither the fuel nor the fuel cell is exactly “futuristic.” What leads us to the future is the only thing that ever has: the amount of public interest in solving this problem, and the amount of money that institutions — both public and private — are investing to put FCEVs on the road and hydrogen fueling stations around the world.



"I think this is the tipping point,” says Elrick, “the point where the first sale happens, the point where the first infrastructure network [is developed]. That’s the true tipping point of the launch.” The state of California alone aims to have 1.5 million zero-emission vehicles on the road in the next decade, and other traditional automaking powerhouses like Japan and Germany have announced even more ambitious goals. Shorter timelines, faster adoption. Or, as Elrick puts it, “Electric vehicles, both fuel cells and batteries, are the wave of the future in such a way that the auto companies are making sure that they can provide those technologies to anyone and everyone.” The era of alternative fuel vehicles has dawned because, finally, we’ve all agreed that sustainable, renewable energy is both little-I and big-I important. Because you and I and everyone we know understands now that the future is our business.

The fuel cell giant is waking up.

Check out the LF-FC concept car here: