Shell Is Immediately Closing All Of Its California Hydrogen Stations | The oil giant is one of the big players in hydrogen globally, but even it can’t make its operations work here.::The oil giant is one of the big players in hydrogen globally, but even it can’t make its operations work here. All seven of its California stations will close immediately.
First of all, there are three (popular) hydrogen cars available, and only one of them is from Toyota. And more are scheduled to launch very soon.
Everyone who’s tested those three cars loves them. The Toyota Mirai is supposedly very similar to, and in fact nicer than, the Lexus LS 500 and it’s also tens of thousands of dollars cheaper than that car. When (and I believe it is a “when”) hydrogen is easier to access, it’s going to take off.
The only real drawback Hydrogen ever had was cost. But that’s not an issue anymore, prices have come down a lot. And the “range anxiety” issue is helped tremendously by just having a really really long range. You’re only going to fill up twice a month or so.
Hydrogen’s fundamental problem is that it isn’t competing with fossil fuels any more, it’s competing with battery EVs. And the inefficiency means even if all the filling station hardware was free, driving on hydrogen can never be less than three times the cost of driving on electricity.