In the last few weeks, Shell has decided to close pretty much all of its hydrogen refuelling stations in California, citing difficulties with supply and external market factors.

What was initially supposed to be temporary, has now turned into a permanent closure. Shell has closed six of the seven stations it had in California and one will remain, the Torrance station in Los Angeles.

“After temporary closure of five of its eight light-duty stations, [Shell] made the decision to exit the hydrogen light-duty passenger vehicle fueling market in California. Of Shell’s light-duty network in the US, seven stations have been closed, and Shell is exploring options to divest its Torrance, California, station.”

Shell

Instead of focusing on hydrogen for passenger vehicles, which the market for is very minute, the company is going to concentrate on fuelling stations for trucks and heavy vehicles.

In most countries, hydrogen has never had any traction. For example, in 2023 - 3,143 hydrogen vehicles were registered in California, which makes up just 1% of the electric vehicles sold in the same timeframe. In the UK, only 300 have been sold in the last 20 years. Compare that to pure electric vehicles, which have seen over one million sales since 2002.

The idea of hydrogen has for some people, been quite appealing. It offers fast refuel times and only water comes out the back. However, the production of hydrogen is incredibly pollutive with enormous amounts of energy required to produce not much in return.