Beyond the Battery: Why Hydrogen Still Matters in the Future of Transport
A personal recollection of electric transport, stored energy, hydrogen and the continuing search for a practical replacement for petrol and diesel
Foreword
Transport technology is often discussed as though the present generation has invented the questions that it is trying to answer. The reality is rather different. The search for an alternative to petrol and diesel has been continuing for well over a century, and both battery-electric propulsion and hydrogen-powered transport have histories considerably older than today's headlines suggest.
My own interest in this subject goes back more than three decades. Some of what I remember comes from what I encountered in the early 1990s; some comes from things I subsequently saw, studied and experienced; and some has acquired a new significance as technologies that once appeared futuristic have begun to return to practical transportation.
This essay therefore combines personal recollection with historical and technological examination. Where an old recollection cannot now be independently established, I have treated it as recollection rather than fact. Where historical records are available, I have allowed the record to speak for itself.
The central question is not whether batteries are good or bad. Batteries are an extraordinary technology and have transformed electric transportation. My question is a different one: how can an electric vehicle replenish its energy quickly enough and conveniently enough to preserve the freedom and flexibility that made petrol and diesel vehicles so successful?
That question leads naturally to hydrogen.
Preface
There is a tendency in present-day discussions to divide transport into two camps: the battery-electric camp and the hydrogen camp. I do not subscribe to such a simplistic division.
A battery is an excellent means of storing electrical energy. An electric motor is an excellent means of converting electrical energy into mechanical motion. There is no contradiction in recognising both facts while questioning whether a large battery is always the most convenient means of supplying energy to every type of vehicle.
The success of petrol and diesel was not due solely to the internal-combustion engine. It was also due to an exceptionally convenient energy-delivery system. Fuel could be carried in a tank, transported almost anywhere, stored for considerable periods and replenished rapidly.
A motorist could enter a petrol station, fill the tank, pay for the fuel and continue the journey. The process usually took only a few minutes. The vehicle did not have to remain stationary for a prolonged period while its energy store underwent an electrochemical charging process.
That simple practical advantage should not be underestimated.
The future of transport therefore involves more than asking which propulsion system is the most efficient on paper. It must also ask how people actually use vehicles: how far they travel, how often they stop, how much payload they carry, how quickly they must return to service and what infrastructure is available to them.
It is from this perspective that I continue to regard hydrogen as a serious contender.
1. The Question That Has Not Gone Away
The fundamental problem of transportation is deceptively simple. A vehicle requires energy, but that energy must somehow accompany the vehicle or remain available along its route.
Petrol and diesel solved the problem through portable chemical energy. A tank could hold a substantial quantity of fuel without adding an impractical amount of weight to the vehicle. The fuel could be replenished rapidly and the vehicle could then travel hundreds of kilometres before requiring another stop.
Electricity solved the propulsion problem admirably, but historically it required a different arrangement. A railway could use overhead wires or a third rail. A tram could remain connected to its electrical supply. A trolleybus could draw current continuously while operating on a fixed route.
The difficulty begins when an electric vehicle must travel freely away from fixed electrical infrastructure.
That is precisely where batteries enter the story.
2. An Indian Example from the 1930s
Long before the present battery-electric vehicle revolution, Indian railway engineers had already confronted the problem of supplying electric traction beyond the reach of overhead electrification.
The South Indian Railway's Madras Beach–Tambaram metre-gauge system was electrified at 1,500 V DC in the early 1930s. Four electric locomotives of the YCG-1 class, built by Hawthorn Leslie with electrical equipment from English Electric, were introduced for this system.
These locomotives were conventional electric locomotives in the sense that they normally drew power from the overhead electrical system. Yet there was a clever provision for circumstances in which they had to work on unelectrified sidings and other sections.
Battery tenders could be coupled to the locomotives.
The battery tender was, in effect, a mobile store of electrical energy. The locomotive remained an electric locomotive, but its dependence upon the overhead line could temporarily be overcome by carrying stored electricity behind it.
This is a remarkable piece of engineering history. The problem was not solved by abandoning electric propulsion. It was solved by finding another way of carrying energy.
I have personally seen the preserved YCG-1-class locomotive at Tambaram, its historic home area. The example at the National Rail Museum in New Delhi also provides a reminder of this early chapter in Indian electric traction. The battery tenders, however, have disappeared from preservation and were lost many decades ago.
To my mind, the principle is worth remembering: electric propulsion does not necessarily mean that the vehicle must always remain physically connected to an electrical supply.
3. The Electric Vehicle Was Already Here More Than a Century Ago
The modern electric vehicle is often presented as though it were a creation of the twenty-first century. It is not. The electric motor, the rechargeable battery and the electric road vehicle all belong to a much older technological history.
When I began thinking about electric and hydrogen-powered transport more than three decades ago, I was therefore not looking at an entirely new idea. I was looking at an old idea whose time, in some respects, appeared to have come again.
Electric vehicles were being experimented with during the closing years of the nineteenth century. By the beginning of the twentieth century, electric cars had already appeared on public roads, and electric taxis were not merely theoretical machines.
One particularly striking example comes from New York. Electric taxis were operating there as early as 1895. The fact is worth remembering because it places electric road transport at the very beginning of the automobile age itself. The internal-combustion engine did not emerge into a world in which electric propulsion was absent. It emerged into a world in which several competing forms of propulsion were already being tested.
Steam, electricity, coal and the internal-combustion engine were all contenders.
The subsequent victory of petrol and diesel was therefore not the inevitable result of one technology being inherently superior in every respect. It was the result of a combination of circumstances: improvements in the internal-combustion engine, the increasing availability of petroleum, the development of roads and fuel distribution, the growing range of motor vehicles and, importantly, the extraordinary convenience of liquid-fuel refuelling.
That last factor deserves particular attention.
Electricity Was Not Defeated by the Motor Alone
The early electric car possessed several virtues. It was comparatively quiet, mechanically simple and free from the starting difficulties associated with early petrol engines. There was no carburettor to adjust, no manual ignition procedure and no exhaust system in the modern sense.
But the battery presented a fundamental limitation.
The vehicle carried its energy store with it, and once that stored electrical energy had been depleted, the vehicle required either time for recharging or another charged source of electrical energy.
Petrol and diesel offered a different proposition. Their energy density was extremely high by the standards of contemporary battery technology, and the energy could be transferred into the vehicle in a matter of minutes.
That difference became increasingly important as motor vehicles were expected to travel farther and perform more demanding work.
Electric Taxis in New York
The history of electric taxis provides an especially useful example because a taxi is not an ordinary private vehicle. It is a working vehicle.
A taxi earns money while it is carrying passengers and loses productive time while it is unavailable for service. Consequently, the question of how quickly its energy can be replenished is not merely a matter of personal convenience. It is an economic consideration.
Electric taxis were already being operated in New York in the 1890s. Their existence demonstrates that the fundamental concept of using an electric motor for urban passenger transport is more than a century old.
The lesson from that period is not that electric vehicles were failures. Rather, it is that the surrounding energy infrastructure is just as important as the vehicle itself.
Britain's Electric Vehicles of the 1940s
A British Pathé film I recently came across provides another fascinating glimpse into this history. The film shows an electric vehicle of the 1940 period operating in Britain.
Seen through modern eyes, such a vehicle can appear surprisingly familiar. It had an electric drivetrain at a time when the motor car was increasingly associated with the internal-combustion engine.
Its existence also reminds us that electric road transport did not disappear entirely during the first half of the twentieth century. It survived in particular niches where its characteristics were useful.
This included urban delivery work and other applications in which vehicles travelled predictable routes, returned to a known base and could be recharged during periods when they were not required for service.
In other words, the limitations of battery technology could sometimes be accommodated by changing the operating pattern of the vehicle.
Sweden and the Battery-Electric Vehicle
Sweden provides another important chapter in this history.
Battery-electric road vehicles were being developed and operated in Sweden during the first half of the twentieth century. During the 1940s, shortages of conventional fuels made electric propulsion particularly attractive for certain forms of commercial transport.
Svensk Elektrobil AB, associated with ASEA, produced battery-electric commercial vehicles. The company's vehicles demonstrate that the electric road vehicle was not merely an inventor's curiosity. It could be engineered for practical work.
The vehicles of the period, naturally, possessed none of the advantages of modern lithium-ion battery systems. Lead-acid batteries were heavy, energy density was low and range was limited. Yet the principle was perfectly sound: electrical energy could be stored chemically and converted into mechanical motion through an electric motor.
The Battery-Swapping Idea Was Not New Either
There is another aspect of the Swedish story that particularly interests me.
I recently came across historical footage showing Swedish electric taxis having their batteries changed. The principle is remarkably simple. Instead of keeping the vehicle stationary while its discharged battery is recharged, the depleted battery is removed and replaced by a charged battery.
From the driver's point of view, this changes the nature of the problem completely.
The vehicle does not have to wait for the battery to regain its charge. The energy store itself is exchanged.
This is precisely the distinction that is once again being discussed in the twenty-first century with modern battery-swapping systems.
The concept is therefore not an invention of the present generation. What has changed is the technology available to implement it.
Modern batteries are vastly lighter and more energy-dense than the lead-acid batteries of the early electric-vehicle era. Automated handling systems can perform battery exchanges with remarkable speed. Digital systems can monitor battery condition, state of charge and usage history.
Yet the fundamental proposition remains exactly the same:
Do not necessarily wait for the energy store to recharge; exchange the depleted energy store for a charged one.
A Lesson From the Past
These examples alter the way in which the present debate about electric vehicles ought to be understood.
Battery-electric vehicles are not a sudden technological revolution without precedent. They represent the latest stage of a development that has been proceeding, with interruptions and reversals, for well over a century.
Likewise, battery swapping is not a fashionable novelty. It is an old engineering response to a simple operational problem.
The problem is time.
A private motorist may be perfectly happy to connect a vehicle to a charger overnight. A commercial operator whose vehicle must remain productive throughout the day may regard the same waiting period very differently.
This distinction is central to my interest in hydrogen.
I do not regard the battery-electric vehicle as an inferior form of transport. Far from it. The battery is an extraordinarily capable energy-storage device, and modern electric vehicles have demonstrated what can be achieved with it.
My question is simply whether every form of transport should be expected to obtain its energy in the same manner.
The history of electric transport suggests otherwise.
Some vehicles were connected continuously to overhead wires. Some carried batteries. Some used battery tenders. Some returned to a depot for charging. Some experimented with battery exchange.
Each was an attempt to solve the same underlying problem:
How can an electric vehicle obtain sufficient energy, with the least disruption to its work?
That question brings us naturally to hydrogen.
4. The Petrol Station Was More Than a Fuel Station
One of the reasons petrol and diesel vehicles became so successful was that their refuelling infrastructure fitted naturally into the rhythm of human travel.
The petrol station became an almost universal piece of transport infrastructure. A driver did not have to plan an elaborate charging schedule. The vehicle could be refuelled whenever convenient.
This characteristic is sometimes overlooked when comparing battery-electric vehicles with conventional vehicles.
The issue is not merely range. It is downtime.
A commercial vehicle that remains stationary for an hour is not merely consuming electricity; it may be losing productive time. A taxi that spends a substantial part of its working day charging is not simply experiencing an energy problem; it is experiencing an operational problem. The same consideration applies to delivery vehicles, buses, long-distance trucks and other high-utilisation vehicles.
Fast charging has improved the situation considerably, and battery technology continues to advance. Nevertheless, the basic difference remains: a battery must accept electrical energy through a controlled charging process, whereas a conventional fuel tank can generally be replenished very rapidly.
This is the principal reason why I remain interested in hydrogen.
5. Hydrogen: Electricity Without a Large Battery
A hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle is still, fundamentally, an electric vehicle.
The difference lies in where the energy is stored.
In a battery-electric vehicle, electricity is stored electrochemically in the battery and delivered to the motor through power electronics.
In a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle, hydrogen is stored aboard the vehicle. The fuel cell converts the chemical energy of hydrogen into electricity, which then powers an electric motor.
The simplified chain is:
Hydrogen → fuel cell → electricity → electric motor → wheels
Thus, the apparent opposition between an EV and a hydrogen vehicle is somewhat misleading. A fuel-cell vehicle is also an electric vehicle. The real distinction is between different methods of storing and replenishing energy.
6. Iceland and the Hydrogen Experiment
Iceland became one of the most interesting early test beds for hydrogen transport because of its unusual energy circumstances.
The country possesses abundant renewable electricity from hydroelectric and geothermal sources. This created an opportunity to produce hydrogen by electrolysis using electricity and water.
It is important, however, to make a distinction. Iceland did not possess an inexhaustible natural reservoir of usable molecular hydrogen simply waiting to be collected from geysers and thermal vents. The hydrogen used in the transport programme was produced using electricity and water.
The significance of Iceland was therefore its renewable energy base.
The ECTOS project, or Ecological City Transport System, began in 2001. A hydrogen production, compression, storage and dispensing station was inaugurated in Reykjavík in 2003. The first hydrogen fuel-cell buses entered normal public service in October 2003.
Three Mercedes-Benz Citaro fuel-cell buses operated on Reykjavík's public transport system. The hydrogen station produced hydrogen by electrolysis, using fresh water and electricity. The buses were subsequently operated through further demonstration work, including the HyFLEET:CUTE programme.
This is an important correction to a memory I carried for many years. I remember hydrogen transport in Iceland being reported by the BBC around the early period of my recollection. I cannot now establish that Reykjavík buses were actually operating on hydrogen in the early 1990s. The documentary evidence places the public hydrogen-bus operation in 2003.
The memory of the subject was therefore substantially ahead of the actual bus deployment, even if the precise date had become blurred by the passage of more than three decades.
7. What Iceland Really Demonstrated
The Icelandic experiment demonstrated something more significant than merely putting hydrogen into a bus.
It demonstrated a complete energy chain:
Renewable electricity → electrolysis → hydrogen → storage → refuelling → fuel cell → electric motor.
In other words, electricity could be converted into a transportable chemical energy carrier.
That is one of hydrogen's principal attractions.
A battery stores electrical energy directly. Hydrogen stores energy in chemical form and can subsequently be converted back into electricity when required.
Neither method is perfect. Direct electricity-to-battery-to-motor propulsion is generally more energy efficient than producing hydrogen, compressing or storing it, and then converting it back into electricity through a fuel cell.
But efficiency is not the only consideration in transport.
Storage, weight, range, utilisation, refuelling time, infrastructure and operational economics also matter.
8. China Brings Hydrogen to Two Wheels
Recent developments in China have made the hydrogen discussion even more interesting.
Hydrogen fuel-cell two-wheelers are now being developed and deployed in practical applications, including shared mobility, delivery and short-distance urban transport.
In 2025, Chinese regional authorities and industry reports described hydrogen fuel-cell two-wheelers being introduced in cities including Shanghai, Foshan and Chengdu. Some systems use solid-state hydrogen storage rather than conventional high-pressure storage.
In March 2026, China Daily reported that hydrogen-powered shared bicycles in Chengdu had reached substantial operational deployment, with individual vehicles carrying about 100 grams of hydrogen and achieving a reported range approaching 100 kilometres.
China has also moved towards formal technical standards for fuel-cell electric motorcycles and mopeds. National standards published in 2026 cover both safety requirements and testing of energy consumption and range.
This development is significant because it takes hydrogen beyond the image of an experimental bus or an expensive demonstration car.
It places hydrogen in a category where rapid energy replenishment, daily utilisation and operational availability may be more important than absolute drivetrain efficiency.
9. Why I Continue to Look Towards Hydrogen
My preference for hydrogen does not arise from opposition to batteries.
I regard battery technology as one of the great achievements of modern engineering. Batteries have transformed portable electronics, communications, energy storage and transportation.
My concern is narrower.
I question whether a large battery is necessarily the best solution for every vehicle that requires frequent, rapid and flexible replenishment of energy.
Consider a taxi driver, a delivery rider, a long-distance truck operator or a bus company. Their vehicle is not merely a means of transport. It is an operating asset.
Time spent waiting for energy can become a commercial cost.
If hydrogen can be dispensed rapidly, stored safely and supplied economically, a fuel-cell vehicle could retain many of the operational characteristics that made petrol and diesel so convenient while using an electric drivetrain.
The analogy with CNG and LPG is useful. Drivers already understand the basic concept of arriving at a station, connecting a fuelling nozzle, transferring a gaseous fuel into a storage system and continuing their journey.
Hydrogen would require considerably more sophisticated infrastructure and stringent safety systems, but the behavioural model would be familiar: drive, refuel and continue.
10. The Difficulties Hydrogen Cannot Be Allowed to Hide
A serious discussion of hydrogen must also acknowledge its disadvantages.
Hydrogen is not a primary energy source in the same sense as sunlight, wind, coal or natural gas. It is an energy carrier. The energy required to produce it must come from somewhere.
If hydrogen is produced using renewable electricity, the environmental case can be strong. If it is produced from fossil fuels without effective carbon capture, the environmental advantage is greatly reduced.
Hydrogen also presents engineering challenges. It has a very low volumetric energy density under ordinary conditions and therefore requires compression, liquefaction or alternative storage methods. Tanks, pipelines, compressors, dispensers and fuel-cell systems add complexity and cost.
Hydrogen is also not automatically cheaper than petrol, diesel or electricity merely because it can be refuelled quickly.
There is no magic wand.
The hydrogen economy will succeed only if production, storage, distribution, dispensing and vehicle technology become sufficiently economical and reliable.
11. Battery and Hydrogen Need Not Be Enemies
The most sensible future may not involve one technology defeating the other.
Small passenger vehicles used primarily for short urban journeys may be extremely well suited to battery-electric propulsion. Home charging can be particularly convenient for owners who park their vehicles for many hours.
Electricity from the grid can go directly into the battery without the additional conversion steps required for hydrogen.
Hydrogen, on the other hand, may become particularly interesting where range, rapid refuelling, payload and vehicle utilisation are important.
Heavy road transport, long-distance commercial vehicles, buses, specialised fleets and certain industrial applications may therefore justify a different energy architecture.
The answer need not be ideological.
12. The Real Competition Is Not Between Hydrogen and Batteries
After considering the subject for many years, I believe the real competition is not between hydrogen and batteries as such.
It is between different ways of satisfying the requirements of mobility.
A successful transport energy system must provide:
- adequate range;
- reasonable vehicle weight;
- rapid and convenient replenishment;
- safe energy storage;
- reliable infrastructure;
- reasonable operating cost;
- acceptable environmental performance;
- high vehicle availability; and
- freedom from unnecessary interruptions to the journey.
No technology should receive a free pass merely because it is fashionable. Equally, no technology should be dismissed merely because it is unfamiliar.
13. From the YCG Locomotive to the Hydrogen Two-Wheeler
There is an extraordinary thread running through the examples discussed here.
In 1930s Madras, an electric locomotive could use overhead electricity and, when necessary, a battery tender.
In 1940s Sweden, battery-electric commercial vehicles demonstrated that road transport could operate without petrol.
Decades later, battery swapping emerged repeatedly as an idea for overcoming charging delays.
Iceland demonstrated that renewable electricity could be converted into hydrogen and used to power public transport through fuel cells.
China is now applying hydrogen fuel-cell technology to two-wheelers and other commercial transport applications.
The machines have changed, but the question remains remarkably constant:
How do we put sufficient usable energy into a vehicle without making the vehicle impractical or interrupting its work unnecessarily?
14. Thirty-Three Years Later
More than three decades after I first began thinking seriously about hydrogen as a transport fuel, the subject has still not disappeared.
Battery-electric vehicles have advanced enormously. Charging networks have expanded. Battery chemistry has improved. Electric motors and power electronics have become highly sophisticated.
Yet hydrogen has also survived the passing of fashions. It has moved from laboratory experiments to buses, cars, commercial vehicles, industrial equipment and, increasingly, two-wheelers.
I therefore do not see the future as a choice between a battery world and a hydrogen world.
I see a transport system in which different energy-storage methods may coexist because different vehicles perform different tasks.
The passenger car that spends most of the night parked at home may have little difficulty with battery charging.
A taxi, delivery vehicle or heavy truck working continuously may value rapid replenishment much more highly.
For such applications, hydrogen deserves to remain on the table.
That is why, despite my appreciation of battery technology, I continue to look towards hydrogen as a potentially important transport fuel of the future.
15. The Future May Be More Diverse Than We Expect
Technological history rarely proceeds in a straight line.
One technology may dominate for a period and then encounter an application for which another technology proves more suitable. Sometimes an old idea returns after its supporting technology has matured.
Battery vehicles are not new. Hydrogen vehicles are not new. Electric railways are not new. Battery swapping is not new.
What is new is the technological capability available to us today.
We now possess power electronics, advanced electric motors, high-performance batteries, sophisticated fuel cells, improved hydrogen storage systems, digital energy management and renewable electricity generation on a scale that earlier generations could scarcely have imagined.
The sensible course is therefore not to close the door on any technology prematurely.
The ultimate objective is simple: cleaner, safer, more efficient and genuinely convenient mobility.
If batteries can provide it for one class of vehicle, they should be used.
If hydrogen can provide it more effectively for another, hydrogen should not be dismissed.
The road ahead may belong not to one fuel, one battery chemistry or one propulsion system, but to a carefully balanced combination of technologies.
Glossary
- Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV)
- A vehicle propelled by electric motors using electricity stored primarily in rechargeable batteries.
- Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV)
- An electric vehicle in which a fuel cell converts the chemical energy of hydrogen into electricity to power the electric drivetrain.
- H₂
- The molecular formula for hydrogen gas. The correct scientific notation is H₂, not H².
- Hydrogen Fuel Cell
- An electrochemical device that generates electricity from hydrogen and an oxidising agent, normally oxygen from air.
- Electrolysis
- The process of using electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
- Energy Carrier
- A substance or medium capable of storing and transporting usable energy. Hydrogen is an energy carrier rather than a primary source of energy.
- Battery Tender
- A separate vehicle carrying batteries and coupled to a locomotive or other electric vehicle to provide stored electrical energy where fixed electrical supply is unavailable.
- YCG-1
- The classification of an early Indian 1,500 V DC electric locomotive used on the Madras Beach–Tambaram system from the 1930s. The class had provision for coupling to battery tenders for work on unelectrified sections.
- Refuelling
- The replenishment of a vehicle's stored chemical energy, such as petrol, diesel, CNG, LPG or hydrogen.
- Charging
- The process of transferring electrical energy into a rechargeable battery.
- Energy Density
- The amount of energy stored per unit of mass or volume. It is an important consideration in transport because vehicle mass and available space directly affect performance.
References and Further Reading
- Indian Railway Fan Club Association, material on Indian DC electric, battery and dual-traction locomotives, including the YCG-1 class.
- Icelandic New Energy, ECTOS project documentation and history of hydrogen fuel-cell buses in Reykjavík.
- European Commission CORDIS, ECTOS — Ecological City Transport System.
- Contemporary and historical material concerning Svensk Elektrobil AB and Swedish battery-electric vehicles of the 1940s.
- Chinese government and Chinese national-standard documentation concerning hydrogen fuel-cell motorcycles and mopeds.
- Contemporary Chinese reporting on hydrogen fuel-cell two-wheelers and shared mobility applications.
Note on historical recollection: Personal memories cited in this essay are identified as such where documentary confirmation is incomplete. Historical claims have been separated from recollection rather than presented as equivalent forms of evidence.
A Note on Scientific Temper
This essay is written in the spirit of Article 51A(h) of the Constitution of India, which calls upon citizens “to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of inquiry and reform”. The purpose is not to advocate a technology merely because it is fashionable, but to examine evidence, acknowledge limitations and remain open to competing technological possibilities.
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