IN SPITE of recent publicity about some stalling hydrogen projects in Australia, hydrogen as a vehicle fuel is not dead. It still has a future role as a transport fuel, but hydrogen’s role is likely to be more specialised than previously imagined.

But the future role of hydrogen-fuelled cars is being challenged by the sudden uptake of EVs. 

This is the view of Australian Hydrogen Council co-founder and director Scott Nargar who told GoAutoNews Premium that while hydrogen fuel-cell cars have some advantages such as fast refuelling and potentially long range, EVs are developing rapidly, EV charging infrastructure is expanding, and manufacturers are investing heavily in battery technology.

Australian Hydrogen Council co-founder and director Scott Nargar

He believes hydrogen has a particularly good fit with vehicles that operate intensively and return to a central depot. These include delivery trucks, buses and potentially garbage trucks and other fleet vehicles. In order to move the concept forward, Mr Nargar said, work is needed to create hubs that could support these vehicles and businesses.

Mr Narger, an expert in using the gas for decarbonising transport, said that hydrogen is perfect for short-haul operations like delivery trucks and buses and sees huge potential in these transport sectors. But Mr Nargar is less optimistic about hydrogen’s future in passenger vehicles given they have to compete with the surge in EV sales.

“Growth of hydrogen as a fuel for passenger cars has been made harder by the rapid growth of EVs and also the rapid expansion of EVs at prices that make it very hard for hydrogen to compete,” he said.

“When you put that against the infrastructure that’s required for a hydrogen vehicle, it makes it a harder challenge to use hydrogen decarbonisation in passenger cars than in EVs. 

“The hydrogen technology from quick refueling to the longer range is still better in all cases than an EV is today, even with the fastest charging batteries, but I don’t think we’re going to see a (hydrogen) passenger vehicle network any time soon in Australia, given the cost of infrastructure,” he said.

Against this background, the Australian Hydrogen Council last year moved away from its concentration on hydrogen for the transport industry.

This move led to Hyundai concluding its membership in the AHC in December 2025 and, in parallel, joined Toyota and BMW to establish the Hydrogen Transport Forum in May 2025. There are now five members (with Foton and Change Fuel Technologies joining) and more members – OEMs and suppliers and fleets – to be invited in the future.

This forum has a dedicated focus on hydrogen transport, including heavy vehicles, customers, refuelling infrastructure and hydrogen supply pathways.

Mr Nargar said while hydrogen potential in passenger vehicles was being affected by EVs, its use for other transport types remained both strong and viable, At the same time, the price of the hydrogen infrastructure was falling.

He said much of the infrastructure price decreases have been triggered by the increasing use of transportable hydrogen refuelling stations.

“Some of this has been driven by China building stations in 20-foot to 40-foot containers, so they’re redeployable containerised refuelling stations,” he said.

“These are a great option in the early stages to build up a fleet or a network of vehicles, whether it’s passenger or commercial vehicles, truck or bus.

“Once that fleet is in place, you have a permanent, high-volume solution to supplying hydrogen.”

Mr Nargar said these deployable hydrogen stations are now being made in Australia by H2H, a Queensland-based company founded by its CEO Cranston Polson.

“One station has been deployed in Tasmania, another is being developed in Queensland and Western Australia, and I believe there are also opportunities to deploy them in New Zealand,” he said.

“Toyota Australia has also ordered a number of relocatable hydrogen refuelling stations from global hydrogen company Hydrexia.”

Mr Nargar said that the biggest hydrogen station in the southern hemisphere is the Viva Energy station in Geelong, which has mass production of green hydrogen and a capability to refuel cars, buses and trucks every day.

“The sister station of that should be opened next month by Woodside in the Perth suburb of Kwinana which is almost a replica of that station in Geelong,” he said.

“So there’s two great stations that are already funded and where fleets don’t have to worry about infrastructure. 

“That’s where we should be focusing our truck deployments today.”

There is also a hydrogen station being opened in Cairns and a NSW government-funded station in Port Kembla, the latter being a coal gas facility near the Blue Scope steelworks and where Coregas has a hydrogen production plant making hydrogen with a carbon footprint.

Mr Nargar said hydrogen production had previously been discussed by companies as large-scale businesses and he believes that mass production on these scales was not suited to the needs of the market.

“When you look at mass production you need to have offtake to justify the investment,” he said.

“Nobody’s making a lot of hydrogen because no one uses a lot of it. Australia has had this fixation for a number of years on mass production in various states – Western Australia and a few big projects in Queensland.

“To me, one of the smartest things we could have done is focus on those industrial business parks where you’ve got a lot of warehousing and a lot of freight moving between warehouses.

“These parks would be some of the best places in Australia for hydrogen production to suit hydrogen-fuelled transport.

“And one of the best places to fund mass production of hydrogen would be the Western Sydney Airport hub.

“It is the newest 24/7 airport in the world; it has the biggest air-freight logistics hub in the southern hemisphere; and it is surrounded by the biggest road-freight logistics hub in the southern hemisphere.

“Amazon has about five warehouses there, along with all the major businesses with multiple warehousing, all moving freight from the airport to their warehousing, and then often to additional warehousing in the Sydney metro area. 

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“That would be a great way to start decarbonisation. And having a couple of well-positioned hydrogen refueling stations, and having high-frequency trucks, trucks that run 24/7 and don’t have time to be sitting while charging for hours and hours.

“You want these freight vehicles moving. This would be a perfect demonstration of hydrogen as a fuel for short-haul freight operations.

“A lot of people seem to be focused on long haul but there’s no long-haul trucks that carry multi-combination trailers. The trucks that are running line haul between Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne; they’re all running multi-combination trailers.

“No other country in the world is asking for hydrogen-fuel trucks that carry four trailers. The cost of developing these trucks to a manufacturer would be prohibitive given that the only customer would be some operators in Australia.”

“So we should be focusing on those high-frequency opportunities: buses and short-haul or last-mile delivery trucks.

“For example, Sydney to Newcastle with hydrogen trucks having access to a network of 24/7 refuelling stations for high frequency freight work. That’s a perfect opportunity to demonstrate the benefits of hydrogen.”

Mr Nargar said that another growing development was the number of companies looking at hydrogen injection into internal combustion.

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“This is a much cheaper solution when it comes to changing over trucks. Fleet operators can start to trial trucks on hydrogen towards the end of their operational life to give a taste of what it is to do hydrogen injection into thermal combustion,” he said.

Mr Nargar said that the dual-fuel concept offers fleets “a great opportunity”.

“It comes back to the basics of what is the best technology to move mass around, and certainly as the heavier the mass gets, hydrogen’s far better than electric to move a heavier mass around,” he said.

“That’s also why you won’t see hydrogen in small passenger cars and small SUVs – you’re seeing larger SUVs and bigger vehicles.

“Diesel has done such a good job all these years moving heavier mass around, and it’s going to be replaced by hydrogen. 

“And that’s going to be a combination of hydrogen used with diesel, and a combination of trucks, buses, and cars with big batteries and fuel cells, having a hybrid of both EV and fuel-cell technology.”