Hydrogen could still fuel the future of the combustion engine

Alpine’s exhibition of its Alpenglow prototype at the Spa 6 Hours endurance race in May demonstrated that the jury is far from out on the subject of alternative propulsion.

As did the announcement shortly after from Mazda, Subaru and Toyota that they had together committed to designing new compact combustion engines with integrated electric drive units and compatible with carbon-neutral fuels and hydrogen.

However gripped the world is by BEV technology, we’re still in the early stages of a transition away from fossil fuels, around which the entire global economy has been based for well over 100 years.

The chances of it settling in any particular direction any time soon are slim, and ultimately it’s the viability, affordability, appeal and effectiveness of individual technologies, rather than any political decisions, that will decide how things fall. And while randomly selected dates like 2050 may seem a long way off, we might as well be talking about next week, considering the scale of change the world is facing.

The only thing we can count on is that the transport sector as a whole – land, air and sea – is moving towards sustainable energy. On the automotive side, manufacturers including BMW, Stellantis, Toyota and Honda have all worked on or are working on hydrogen combustion engines, if only to keep on top of the game.

The commercial vehicle industry is investing too, with players including JCB, MAN and Volvo Trucks.

Likewise, hydrogen fuel cells that convert hydrogen and oxygen into electricity are still in play.

The technologies neatly overlap: fuel cell vehicles share their hydrogen storage systems (high-pressure tanks) with hydrogen combustion engines and their electric drivetrain with BEVs.

Engineers and scientists argue the toss over which way is best, depending on their specialities, and opinions vary considerably.

FCEV proponents argue that the problem with electric cars is the need for a long stop to recharge the battery, whereas a hydrogen tank can be refilled pretty much as fast as the fuel tank in a petrol or diesel car.

BEV proponents argue that making electricity, converting it to hydrogen and then using energy to compress and decompress it for distribution and retailing makes no sense compared with making electricity and storing it directly in a battery.

The FCEV camp may then argue that it doesn’t matter if the outcome is zero CO2 emissions, sustainability and affordability.

Making hydrogen is also a way to store off-peak-generated green electricity, as a sort of ‘gas battery’.

Using green electricity to make hydrogen and from that liquid synthetic fuel adds to the range of possibilities, so it looks like manufacturers in all sectors will keep their options open.