They were popular in Thailand and Cambodia for awhile due to domestic natural gas reserves. But after those wells began to dry up Thailand at least decided EVs were the future instead.

H2 from electrolysis is wildly expensive. H2 from natural gas is more affordable. Both are alternatives to BEVs, which are the better approach to electrifying transport. If Toyota had gone all in on BEVs when it began its H2 strategy, it would be selling more EVs than Tesla. Instead it entirely ceded the field to others, first Tesla and BYD.

But isn't that a counter point? Just putting the electricity directly into a car seems sensible instead of converting it to H2 and then back to electricity. Especially now that wo don't usually have a huge oversupply of green energy. We can think of ways to use the oversupply when it really becomes a problem. But I'd assume then BEV will be so dominant the no one will go through the hassle of supporting H2.

> We should embrace any way to get a clean running car on the road.

Only if it's also feasible to fuel that car in a clean way.

And looking at where the hydrogen would come from is not "made up" or "paranoia".

There's no point. EVs go 50% further on the same amount of energy, are easier to charge and are, of course, cheaper.

say you're Shell

you are vertically integrated, you have billions invested in oilfields, refineries, distribution, and the retail channel ("gas stations")

if transport switches to electric, what's your role?

answer: there isn't one, you are completely redundant

but what if hydrogen took off instead?

if you produce via electrolysis, you only keep the retail channel

but if you can get H2 established, then you can do a switcheroo and feed in H2 produced from your existing natural gas infrastructure, and massively undercut everyone's electrolysis business

at which point you're back to the old days, just instead of selling gasoline from your oilfields, you're supplying hydrogen produced from their gas

... and that's exactly what they're trying to do

>We should embrace any way to get a clean running car on the road.

No. We should embrace the technically most feasible, which opens up new technology to the most people.

EVs are the clear winners. Every cent spent on hydrogen infrastructure is a cent wasted, because it could go to making the one feasible technology better. Arbitrary openness to technology long after it has been clearly established that the technology is inferior is not a good thing, it is a path to stay on ICEs forever.

Hydrogen is a bad idea. The only way to defend it is by pretending modern EVs do not exist, since they solved all the existing problems and offer numerous benefits over hydrogen.

Additionally the customer has already chosen and he has chosen the right technology, because the value proposition of an EV is far greater than that of a hydrogen car.