IDTechEx's report "Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles 2025-2045: Markets, Technologies, Forecasts" explores the market for on-road fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs), including cars, light commercial vehicles, medium- and heavy-duty trucks, and buses. The report covers the market drivers, barriers, players, technology, models, benchmarking, and forecasts adoption for the next 20 years for unit sales, fuel cell demand, battery demand, and market value.

 

Fuel cell electric vehicles are powered by a fuel cell stack, which generates electrical power through the reaction between stored hydrogen and oxygen from the air. With the only side product being water, fuel cell vehicles are a zero-emissions solution, just like battery-electric vehicles.

 

Fuel Cell Passenger Cars

However, the past two years have shown a fall in interest in fuel-cell cars. IDTechEx puts this down to multiple factors, the key ones being expensive and unreliable hydrogen refueling stations, the continued progress of BEVs, and the lack of model availability. Despite fuel and purchase subsidies reducing the price of fuel cell cars by approximately 50% or even more in regions such as California and South Korea, annual sales have decreased by approximately two-thirds, from 15,000 in 2022 to only 5,000 by 2024. Meanwhile, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) sold over 10 million and 4 million units respectively. Despite the second successive year of market shrinkage, IDTechEx forecasts fuel cell passenger car sales to slowly recover as national investments in green hydrogen projects and hydrogen refueling stations begin to bear fruit. As a result of delays, lack of sales, and project cancellations, IDTechEx has adjusted its forecast for fuel cell passenger cars downwards from its previous edition.

Fuel Cell Light Commercial Vehicles

In most regions, passenger cars drive shorter journeys than commercial vehicles, which often take fixed routes, some of which are long-haul journeys. However, light commercial vehicles are another segment where the rapid improvement of BEVs has left FCEVs lagging behind. In most regions, FCEVs remain in demonstration fleets and prototype phases. China is the largest fuel cell LCV market, where in 2023, approximately 1,300 sales were recorded. However, approximately 50,000 BEVs were sold in the same year.

Fuel Cell Buses and Trucks

Electric buses are rapidly becoming commonplace worldwide. However, being heavier than light commercial vehicles and passenger cars, the weight and cost of the battery can be an issue. Buses can reduce the size and weight of the battery with a fuel cell stack: hydrogen tanks and the fuel cell can provide some proportion of the power and energy necessary for the vehicle to operate within the required periods.

Medium- and heavy-duty trucks are on the heavier side of the automotive sector, both in terms of carried loads and duty cycles. Zero-emissions trucks continue to be a fast-moving environment, and fuel cell truck companies have been no exception. Nikola, Quantron, and Hyzon have all encountered significant financial obstacles in the past year, but trucks remain the vehicle segment that IDTechEx believes will eventually experience the most market penetration from FCEVs. The USA's National Zero-Emission Freight Corridor Strategy involves the building of a network of hydrogen refueling stations to support freight transportation by 2040, and China continues to sell thousands of fuel cell trucks yearly, accompanied by a targeted 1,200 hydrogen refueling stations by the end of 2025.

 

Similar to buses, trucks with fixed routes mean that refueling infrastructure can be focused at key hubs and centers. This, combined with the current limitations of BEVs in range and weight, means that there is an opportunity in the truck market for FCEVs. Battery electric trucks currently struggle to meet the harshest demands of heavy-duty, long-haul trucking, a potential area of growth. While the total cost of ownership (TCO) remains high for fuel cell trucks, production costs will eventually come down with economies of scale, and refueling will become more cost-effective once green hydrogen projects are completed and begin producing hydrogen fuel in volume.

 

This IDTechEx report covers all the main FCEV segments, providing holistic coverage of the market. In addition to market updates and technology analysis and benchmarking, there is also coverage on the materials for fuel cells, including PFAS concerns newly in this report, as well as the whole hydrogen supply chain, from production to refueling stations. Hydrogen refueling infrastructure will have a massive part to play in any progress of the FCEV market, with this report covering the key regions (China, the US, Europe, the Rest of the World - primarily Japan and South Korea) and supply chain analysis. Granular forecasts are included, split by region and vehicle segment, including unit sales, market value (US$), fuel cell power demand (GW), and battery energy demand (GWh).