Hydrogen mobility: What will determine success now

Hydrogen is increasingly positioned as a strategic technology wherever battery-electric systems approach physical or economic limits. While battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) dominate urban markets, fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) offer potential advantages in applications where range, refuelling time and vehicle weight determine business case viability.

The critical question is therefore not whether hydrogen works technically. It is whether hydrogen mobility can scale economically. The answer lies less in technical specifications and more in the interaction between policy, industrial ecosystems, E/E architecture and total cost of ownership (TCO). For OEMs and suppliers – particularly mid-sized companies – hydrogen mobility represents both an opportunity and a calculated risk. 

Policy support: Necessary but not sufficient

The central political driver in Europe is the IPCEI programme (Important Projects of Common European Interest). In November 2025, EUR 273 million in federal and state funding was approved for the HyPowerDrive project alone. BMW has announced that from 2028 it will introduce a fuel cell version of the X5 as part of its diversified powertrain strategy.

Additional IPCEI projects include:

• Pegasus (Daimler Truck) – focused on long-haul fuel cell trucks
• NextGen HD Stack (EKPO Fuel Cell Technologies) – high-performance fuel cell modules

The political strategy is technology-neutral. Hydrogen is expected to complement batteries, particularly in heavy-duty transport and long-distance logistics. However, subsidies alone do not create a sustainable market. Industrialisation, infrastructure build-out and competitive hydrogen pricing remain decisive.

Why E/E architecture determines viability

In modern fuel cell vehicles, electrical and electronic (E/E) architecture is not a peripheral issue – it is central to efficiency, safety and system integration.

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Energy management must dynamically coordinate fuel cell, buffer battery and electric motor through real-time software. High-pressure hydrogen systems require leak detection, temperature monitoring and redundant ASIL-D compliant safety architectures. Zonal vehicle architectures, Ethernet backbones and high-performance computing units form the digital foundation.

BMW’s hydrogen strategy illustrates this logic. According to Dr Michael Rath, hydrogen expert at BMW Group:

“The basic E/E architecture is identical across all BMW drive variants from the Neue Klasse onwards – a zonal architecture with four high-performance computers. The fuel cell primarily replaces the high-voltage battery within the energy supply system, while the overall vehicle architecture remains largely unchanged.”

The fuel cell system operates as a sealed ecosystem with a one-to-one interface to the vehicle platform – similar to BEV or combustion engine configurations. This modularity enables hydrogen integration without redesigning the full vehicle electronics stack.

In this sense, hydrogen mobility is fundamentally an E/E project.

No OEM can industrialise hydrogen alone

Hydrogen mobility depends on tightly interconnected supply chains. BMW sources stack housings from Landshut, electric turbo compressors from Garrett, high-voltage pumps from Pierburg and high-pressure tanks from suppliers such as NPROXX and Hexagon Purus.

Consortia such as QUTAC, HyPowerDrive, HyCET and H2Haul illustrate that hydrogen industrialisation is a collaborative effort. Mid-sized suppliers may find opportunities in high-pressure systems, sensor technology, safety electronics and power electronics.

Yet scale remains limited without a viable infrastructure.

TCO and infrastructure: The decisive bottleneck

A techno-economic study by RWTH Aachen’s PEM institute concludes that fuel cell trucks offer strong range performance and shorter refuelling times compared to battery-electric heavy-duty vehicles. However, high hydrogen prices and sparse refuelling infrastructure undermine these advantages.

At high daily mileage, TCO parity becomes conceivable. If hydrogen prices decline significantly, fuel cell trucks could become competitive. Without affordable green hydrogen, however, scaling remains economically fragile. This is the core paradox of hydrogen mobility: the technology is close to industrial readiness, but the ecosystem is not.

Where hydrogen makes economic sense

For heavy-duty transport, fixed logistics routes and niche fleet operations, hydrogen may become viable sooner than in passenger cars. For premium vehicle segments, limited series introduction remains possible, as demonstrated by BMW’s 2028 roadmap.

For mid-sized companies, realistic opportunities lie in:

• Specialised components (valve systems, sensors, pressure vessels)
• Participation in funded consortia
• Software and system integration for hydrogen-specific safety layers

Large-scale passenger car adoption, however, remains constrained by infrastructure and cost barriers.

Hydrogen as a complementary strategy

In Germany and Europe, hydrogen mobility is likely to remain complementary to battery-electric mobility rather than replacing it. Heavy-duty transport appears to be the primary application field in the medium term. The broader lesson for the automotive industry is clear: hydrogen is not merely a fuel debate. It is a systems integration challenge.

The transformation towards hydrogen vehicles is therefore less about tanks and stacks – and more about electronics, software, safety architecture and digital ecosystem control. Hydrogen mobility becomes successful when mobility becomes an E/E project.

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