Hydrogen Storage for Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles: Expert Elicitation and a Levelized Cost of Driving Model

A cost-effective and compact hydrogen storage system could advance fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). Today’s commercial FCEVs incorporate storage that is projected to be heavier, larger, and costlier than targets set by the U.S. Driving Research and Innovation for Vehicle efficiency and Energy sustainability Partnership (U.S. DRIVE). To inform research and development (R&D), we elicited 31 experts’ assessments of expected future costs and capacities of storage systems. Experts suggested that systems would approach U.S. DRIVE’s ultimate capacity targets but fall short of cost targets at a high production volume. The 2035 and 2050 median costs anticipated by experts were $13.5 and $10.53/kWhH2, gravimetric capacities of 5.2 and 5.6 wt %, and volumetric capacities of 0.93 and 1.33 kWhH2/L, respectively. To meet U.S. DRIVE’s targets, experts recommended allocating the majority of government hydrogen storage R&D funding to materials development. Furthermore, we incorporated experts’ cost assessments into a levelized cost of driving model. Given technical and fuel price uncertainty, FCEV costs ranged from $0.38 to $0.45/mile ($0.24–$0.28/km) in 2020, $0.30 to $0.33/mile ($0.19–$0.21/km) in 2035–2050, and $0.27 to $0.31/mile ($0.17–$0.19/km) in 2050. Depending on fuel, electricity, and battery prices, our findings suggest that FCEVs could compete with conventional and alternative fuel vehicles by 2035.