Both fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are needed to achieve the most significant transition in the automotive industry’s history – decarbonisation. According to the Roadmap towards zero emissions: the complementary role of BEVs and FCEVs study published by the Hydrogen Council with analytical support from McKinsey & Company, a “combined world”, leveraging the respective strengths of both FCEVs and BEVs, will enable greener transportation faster and cheaper compared to relying on a single technology.
While BEVs are vital for fast decarbonisation and will be a mainstream solution for many use cases, FCEVs similarly have their particular use case strengths, in much the same way that gasoline and diesel play complementary roles today. FCEVs will provide the best option for regions with constrained renewables or limited grid capacity in the mid-to-long term, high power and energy demand vehicle segments, and customer segments with a preference for long range and fast refuelling. The “combined world” will provide superior system efficiency, lifecycle carbon intensity and reduced resource demand.
Building the hydrogen refuelling network alongside battery charging infrastructure will be more cost effective than building a charging infrastructure powerful enough to cover all use cases, including those with high power demands and little charging capacity. To convert all vehicles to BEVs would require costly grid investments in hard-to-serve and high demand areas, such as inner city public fast chargers. Savings, resulting from just 10% of the fleet converting to FCEVs instead, would more than compensate for the cost of a hydrogen refuelling infrastructure in a fully decarbonised scenario. Further, hydrogen can be produced from renewable electricity at peak production, preventing curtailment and grid overload, which will produce a higher systemic efficiency than a single-technology world.