How A Fuel Cell Vehicle Works
Battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) dominate the talk about zero-emission vehicles, and cars like the Chevrolet Bolt EV and Tesla Model 3 are well-known examples of BEV technology. But another type of electric vehicle — the fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) — also produces virtually no harmful exhaust emissions and has virtually all of the other advantages of a BEV.
Furthermore, an FCEV offers quick refueling in a process that mimics filling the gasoline tank of a conventional car. Thus, a fuel cell car regains its full driving range in a matter of five or 10 minutes versus the lengthy charge times of current BEVs.
While all of this sounds exceptionally promising, FCEVs have limitations. One is that until recently fuel cells compact enough to power an automobile have been expensive to manufacture. That issue should resolve itself as the production of fuel cell vehicles scales up.
But an even bigger issue is the availability of hydrogen, the element that, when combined with oxygen, creates the electricity that powers the FCEV. Hydrogen is a common element, but in nature it is rarely found in its isolated state as a highly flammable gas. Most often it combines with other elements in compounds including hydrocarbons like oil and natural gas and with oxygen as water. Because of this, hydrogen must be manufactured, a process that requires energy, and it must be transported to refueling stations. In some instances, it is made at refueling stations by deriving it from water.
No matter how the hydrogen fuel is created, another issue is that the United States has only a tiny number of hydrogen refueling stations open to the public, nearly all of them located in the larger urban areas of California. This creates a chicken-and-egg conundrum. Should society build a hydrogen delivery infrastructure to serve fuel cell vehicles in the anticipation that more FCEVs will hit the road in the future? Or should the hydrogen infrastructure wait until there are enough FCEVs on the road to justify the investment?
In the latter case, there might never be enough fuel cell vehicles in use to spur the construction of hydrogen infrastructure because few people will buy a FCEV if they believe they will have a difficult time filling its tank.