Currently, the U.S. hydrogen industry has the capacity to produce the equivalent of fuel for about 40 million vehicles. Today, only a tiny fraction of the hydrogen is for fuel cell vehicles. About half of the hydrogen produced already goes into transportation—making gasoline cleaner. As with gasoline, hydrogen pipelines exist in many parts of the country and production plants have the potential to expand to meet demand. Increasing capacity by just 2% could provide fuel for 10 million fuel cell vehicles.

California currently has about two dozen stations in operation and others planned. These early stations were built specifically to fuel small fleets of vehicles. UC Davis studied the relationship between average driving time to the nearest station and the percentage of stations for major metropolitan areas. The study found that if hydrogen is available at the equivalent of 2% of existing gas stations, every FCV driver in an urban area can be within minutes of fuel.

In 2009, CaFCPCalifornia Fuel Cell Partnership released an “Action Plan” that describes one way for getting started. The Action Plan calls for 46 public stations in six California communities to support passenger vehicles, transit buses and regulatory development. The plan calls for $180 million in funding from government and industry by 2012 to support stations built through 2014. This will provide convenient access to fuel for the drivers of 5,000 fuel cell passenger vehicles and up to 30 buses, and a good start to a network that will support tens of thousands of vehicles by 2017.

Hydrogen stations might be very diverse in look and design. Some may sell hydrogen along with gasoline and diesel, and perhaps other alternative fuels like E85 or CNG. Other stations may be hydrogen-only stations located in the parking lot of a grocery store or an office complex. Home fueling may also be an option. Hydrogen stations can be “energy stations,” creating fuel for cars and electricity to power a building.