From Hydrogen Fuel to Wheels: Characterizing the Powertrain Hydrogen/Energy Consumption for Battery Versus Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle

Investments in the hydrogen industry have been recently intensified as this fuel is considered to be a relevant part of the green energy transition. Since the transportation sector is one of the main targets to reduce fossil fuel utilization, it is crucial to investigate the use of hydrogen fuel for automotive applications. Therefore, in this paper, the powertrain of a battery electric vehicle versus a hydrogen fuel cell was compared considering for both scenarios hydrogen as the fuel. Accordingly, in the first scenario, hydrogen is used as the source of electricity to power the battery electric vehicle while in the second scenario, it is used as the fuel for the propulsion of a fuel cell vehicle. For the boundary and criteria utilized here, the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle consumed 13% less hydrogen per km compared to the battery electric vehicle. Thus, the results show that in the case that hydrogen is available as fuel, a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle would be more energy efficient, in terms of driving range.