Toyota Mirai and Hyundai Nexo-powering hydrogen electric car technology to get a boost in Australia as NSW, Queensland, and Victoria team up to provide millions in funding

Hydrogen technology is set to get a boost in Australia as the New South Wales, Queensland and Victorian governments team up to provide $20 million toward a renewable refuelling network.

The funding is aimed at providing refuelling infrastructure primarily for hydrogen-fuelled commercial vehicles, but there is no doubt the network and refuelling locations will also be able to be used for passenger vehicles like the Toyota Mirai and Hyundai Nexo, which both arrived in Australia on a trial basis in the last few years.

Hydrogen fuel-cell technology is seen as a promising replacement for diesel commercial vehicles as the fuel cell and fuel system weighs about the same as a combustion drivetrain and refuels in roughly the same amount of time.

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This is a better proposition for trucks which need to travel long distances in Australia, as large amounts of their payload will not be taken up by hundreds of kilowatt hours of batteries which would otherwise be needed to travel the distance between Sydney and Brisbane, for example.

The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI) welcomed the announcement and said: “Renewable hydrogen is energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar which is then stored as hydrogen gas. There is strong potential for this fuel source to eventually be cost competitive with diesel, which according to VFACTS data released by the FCAI, currently powers around one third of Australia’s new vehicles.”

Right now there are only a handful of places to refuel hydrogen vehicles, with one location at a Toyota site in Victoria, one at an AGL site in the ACT, and another at Hyundai's head office in NSW.

The lack of infrastructure is the biggest issue facing hydrogen fuel cell technology.

The announcement builds on previous developments in the hydrogen industry in Australia, with resources billionaire, Andrew ‘Twiggy’ Forest announcing his Fortescue Future Industries company will build the world’s largest electrolyser (equipment needed to generate the fuel) in central Queensland, as well as a large electrolyser and refuelling project by Jemena and Coregas planned for Western Sydney.

While some manufacturers like Volkswagen have talked down the prospect of hydrogen fuel for use in passenger vehicles, other giants like Hyundai and Toyota fully back the technology, with full scale trials underway not just on the Nexo and Mirai respectively, but also on heavy duty commercial vehicles, container ships, and trains.

Airbus is even backing hydrogen technology for low emissions combustion use in jet engines, while Toyota is not just playing in the fuel-cell space, but also experimenting with hydrogen combustion engines.

The first instance of hydrogen use in a production vehicle is likely to be the Hyundai Xcient, as it is already being trialled by select fleet operators in Europe. The Korean brand says right-hand-drive production of the Xcient is still a few years from reality, however.