“After research then industrialization and the first ecosystems, we are gradually entering the era of deploying solutions in heavy mobility. There industrial sector therefore needs massive and structuring deployment projects to scale up », commented Thierry Tournier, president of the Pôle Véhicule du Futur*, on the sidelines of the Forum Hydrogen Business For Climate. From October 1 to 2, the latter set itself the objective of contributing to the acceleration of deployment projects of the hydrogen technology. Which provides, for the first time, an overall assessment of its adoption, global or more local, by vehicle segment.
Korea, the country with the most hydrogenated mobility
With 17,500 new hydrogen vehicles registered in 2023the global fleet today stands at nearly 89,000 vehicles. Despite a drop of 8% compared to 2022, the symbolic threshold of 100 000 vehicles should then be crossed by the end of 2024.
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A dynamic which is mainly based on South Korea, recording 4 254 hydrogen registrations. A rate down 58% over one year but which places the Land of Calm Morning on the first step of the podium, ahead of United States (with 2 978 units and growth of 10% compared to 2022) or Japan (424 registrations and a drop of 50%). A pole position for South Korea which can be explained by the fact that, in 2019, it launched a hydrogen economy policy and promulgated the first law in the world relating to this energy, thus creating a legal and institutional framework necessary for its development.
France, leader in the hydrogen PC segment
France is not left out since France is the leading European market for hydrogen cars, ahead of Germany and the Netherlands, representing 17 % of European hydrogen fleet. Certainly, the number of H2 passenger vehicles sold in 2023 only amounts to 306 registrations, compared to 263 for Germany and 106 for the Netherlands. But the Paris 2024 Olympic Games seem to have boosted the use of hydrogen vehicles, a thousand H2 taxis now circulating in the French capital, or 5% of the total taxi fleet.
Likewise, around fifty hydrogen buses (58 precisely) are in circulation in France, soon joined by 83 others which will be delivered between 2024 and 2026. It must be said that the European regulations requires that 100% of new urban buses have zero-emission engines by 2030, a share which already reached 38 % in France, in 2023. Without forgetting the railway sector with the introduction on French territory of the first 12 hydrogen trainsets by 2026. A point on which Germany is ahead of us, however, with 14 regional hydrogen trains in service since 2022.
A fragile but expanding supply network
It is nevertheless logical that, for the hydrogen vehicle sales continue or even intensify, the network of H2 charging points must be coherent and expanding. If the cape of 1 000 hydrogen distribution stations will soon be reached, the geographical distribution of these is however not at all equal, particularly in China and the United States. California concentrates, for example, 85% of the country’s stations when France has 1 station out of 5 established in Europewith a ratio of 51 out of 264 in total.
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The future ofhydrogen therefore has no other choice than to increase the number of supply points. In addition to a diversity of promising applications of this energy, through handling equipment notably – mainly used in the United States in logistics warehouses and factories – this fuel cell technology « will probably be supplemented in the future by the hydrogen internal combustion engine (MCI H2) » and the retrofitnotes the PVF barometer. Who adds, confidently, that « many players are investing in industrial production hydrogen projectsincluding for new vehicles ».
* The Pôle Véhicule du Futur (PVF), labeled competitiveness cluster since 2005, brings together an ecosystem of 500 members (companies, public research structures, training organizations, economic development leaders and territories in the Bourgogne Franche-Comté and Grand regions East) to support players in the automotive & mobility sector (including hydrogen) in their changes and their ecological/digital transitions.
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