Absolutely correct. As I like to say, because hydrogen doesn’t compress much (if at all) a car with a hydrogen tank is a rolling bomb. Just is.

So the real question that you ask is why? Why do we go after solutions that are not solutions in point of fact. My answer is Grift. Grift is the midpoint in the Kubler-Ross adaptation of the 5 stages of grief. We grieve for the passing of the fossil fuel era and the implications for writing down trillions of dollars of investment. Grift happens after denial and anger, it is a form of negotiation before we ultimately accept our new fate.

The grift/negotiation happens because we seek alternatives that will let us keep most of the investment and infrastructure we’ve developed over about 150 years. It makes us think that hydrogen fueled piston engined cars have a future. They don’t.

Some ideas like building green power to hydrolyze water makes sense technically. But when you look at the cost and bow down to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, you see that all the grifting and negotiation has been a discussion with yourself. We need to move on from hydrogen.