Why Hyundai Still Believes in Hydrogen, and Why Fleets Will Prove It Right
Hyundai has a message for anyone writing the obituary of the hydrogen car: not yet. Speaking to the Australian outlet CarExpert, Scott Nargar, senior manager of future mobility and government relations at Hyundai Australia, insisted that hydrogen is not "dead for passenger vehicles," while conceding the core problem in a single sentence: "The biggest thing is you've got to find customers" (Dnistran, 2026). That candid admission captures where fuel cell vehicles stand in late 2026, with lessons reaching well beyond the showroom.
The appeal of a fuel cell car has never been in doubt. It drives like a battery electric vehicle, refuels in minutes like a gasoline car, and emits only water vapor from the tailpipe. The second generation Hyundai Nexo, unveiled in 2025 as a global model, pairs a 110 kilowatt electric motor with a 2.64 kilowatt hour buffer battery and can travel roughly 435 miles on one tank (Dnistran, 2026). On paper, that is a compelling answer to range anxiety.
In practice, buyers have been hard to find. Toyota, Honda, BMW, and General Motors have all experimented with hydrogen passenger cars, and few drivers know anyone who owns one. Refueling stations remain scarce, and hydrogen cars cost more than comparable gasoline or battery electric models just as battery prices have fallen and fast charging networks have spread (Dnistran, 2026). Each year charging gets easier, the hydrogen car's central selling point gets weaker.
The sales data tell a split story. According to SNE Research, global fuel cell vehicle sales rose 24.4 percent in 2025 to 16,011 units, a modest rebound after two years of steep decline (Schaal, 2026). Look closer, and the growth came almost entirely from two places. South Korea sold 6,802 fuel cell passenger cars, up 84.4 percent, driven by the April 2025 launch of the new Nexo and generous national subsidies. China accounted for 7,797 units, largely commercial vehicles. Everywhere else, the market shrank. North American sales fell 37.7 percent to just 365 units, Japan dropped 37.3 percent, and Europe slid 23.1 percent. Toyota's fuel cell sales fell 39.1 percent, while Hyundai's rose 78.9 percent to 6,861 units (Schaal, 2026). By the first nine months of 2025, the Nexo alone represented more than half of all fuel cell vehicles sold worldwide (Hydrogen Insight, 2025).
The hydrogen car is not dead, but it is alive mainly where governments have built stations and subsidized purchases. That pattern matters, and it explains why Hyundai keeps investing. In late 2025 the company broke ground on a 930 billion won, roughly 700 million dollar, fuel cell plant in Ulsan, South Korea. Due for completion in 2027 under the HTWO brand, it is designed to produce 30,000 fuel cell systems a year for passenger cars, commercial fleets, construction equipment, and marine power, along with electrolyzers (Tomlinson, 2025).
So what does this mean for the hydrogen economy? The first lesson is that passenger cars were always the hardest place to start. A private driver needs a station near home, near work, and along every highway, which is the most expensive possible network to build for the smallest possible daily volume. Fleets reverse that logic. A bus depot, a port, a warehouse, or a mining site can anchor one high volume station with predictable demand, and that demand is what finances the infrastructure. Hyundai's Ulsan plant, with its emphasis on trucks, machinery, and ships, signals that the company understands where the early money is.
The second lesson concerns customers in the broadest sense. Nargar's line about finding customers applies just as much to producers of green hydrogen, electrolyzer makers, and pipeline developers. Projects across the world have stalled not for lack of technology but for lack of signed offtake agreements. The hydrogen economy does not suffer from a supply problem as much as a demand discovery problem. Buyers and sellers struggle to find one another, to agree on price, and to verify the carbon intensity of what they are trading.
The third lesson is about policy. South Korea shows that purchase incentives combined with deliberate station building can move the needle, even for an expensive technology. The United States, where California's network has struggled with closures and high pump prices, shows what happens when infrastructure lags and support wavers. Governments that want hydrogen to play a role in transport should focus support on fleets and corridors where utilization will be high, rather than spreading thin subsidies across scattered retail stations.
Finally, the passenger car still has a role as a technology driver. Every Nexo sold pushes fuel cell stacks down the cost curve, builds a skilled supplier base, and generates real world durability data that trucks, ships, and stationary power systems can use. Hyundai's persistence is less about winning the car market than about keeping its fuel cell know-how sharp and scaled.
Hyundai is right that hydrogen is not dead. It is also right that customers are the missing ingredient. The winners in this industry will be the companies and countries that stop asking whether hydrogen works and start building the markets that match it with the people who need it.
References
Dnistran, I. (2026, November 2). Hyundai says hydrogen cars aren't dead. Finding customers is another story. InsideEVs. https://insideevs.com/news/814057/hyundai-hydrogen-cars-not-dead-hard-customers/
Hydrogen Insight. (2025, November 5). Global sales of hydrogen-powered vehicles continue to fall, despite huge increase in Hyundai Nexo purchases. https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/global-sales-of-hydrogen-powered-vehicles-continue-to-fall-despite-huge-increase-in-hyundai-nexo-purchases/2-1-1896581
Schaal, S. (2026, February 23). Global H2 vehicle sales rise by nearly 25%. Electrive. https://www.electrive.com/2026/02/23/global-h%E2%82%82-vehicle-sales-rise-by-nearly-25/
Tomlinson, P. (2025, November 2). Hyundai Motor Group breaks ground on landmark KRW 930 billion hydrogen fuel cell plant in Ulsan. Hydrogen Industry Leaders. https://hydrogenindustryleaders.com/hyundai-motor-group-breaks-ground-on-landmark-krw-930-billion-hydrogen-fuel-cell-plant-in-ulsan/
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