Honda Motors announced plans this year to begin production of a new hydrogen fuel cell system in collaboration with General Motors (GM)
Honda hopes to broaden the use of its new system to include its own fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), heavy trucks, stationary power stations, and construction machinery. The company plans to sell 2,000 units of the new system per year by the mid-2020s, increasing to 60,000 units per year by 2030.
FCEVs are vehicles that use hydrogen fuel cells to generate electricity rather than batteries. This technology is becoming more popular as a replacement for traditional gasoline-powered vehicles and battery-powered electric vehicles (BEVs).
The next-generation fuel cell system promises to be more than twice as durable as the previous system while lowering costs by two-thirds.
One of the primary advantages of FCEVs over EVs is their longer driving range. In comparison to the average electric car range of around 200 miles, they can typically travel for more than 300 miles on a single tank of hydrogen. Furthermore, hydrogen refuelling stations are much faster than EV charging stations, with most FCEVs able to refuel in a matter of minutes. Furthermore, unlike traditional gasoline vehicles, which emit harmful pollutants, hydrogen fuel cells produce only water as a byproduct.
The main barrier to FCEV adoption is a lack of hydrogen fueling infrastructure, only a few hundred stations are available in the United States. More hydrogen fueling stations will naturally emerge as more manufacturers adopt this technology.