3. Fuel, the main weak point?

In 2014, with the first production fuel cell vehicles appearing in certain markets (USA, Japan, Germany), most of the technical hurdles holding back the development of fuel cell vehicles are about to be surpassed. Durability now exceeds 5,000 h on many systems, cold start-up works, integration of the complete system into a mid-range vehicle has been widely demonstrated, and trends in terms of cost reduction (notably lower platinum content) are favorable.

Almost all vehicles on the road today (several hundred worldwide) carry molecular hydrogen on board. Reforming hydrocarbons, particularly methanol, on board the vehicle seems to be a solution abandoned by all manufacturers. High-pressure storage, at 350 or 700 bars, is by far the most common, and often enables a range of around 500 km to be achieved, with a filling time of 3 to 5 minutes.

...