It will be at least two decades before hydrogen-powered cars hit the mainstream because of the cost and difficulty of fuelling them.

That’s according to Ford’s leading engineer on hydrogen cars in this Bloomberg interview.

In his rather gloomy assessment of the state of the market for hydrogen-powered cars Ford’s Greg Frenette told Bloomberg:

“I have not seen a viable, affordable plan to convert an economy to hydrogen. It could well take until 2030.”

This issue has been recognised by the EU, which last month backed proposals for a Europe-wide filling station network for hydrogen-powered vehicles, as reported here on Greenbang.

There’s also loads of research going on at various UK universities around hydrogen-powered cars. Birmingham University recently bought a fleet of five hydrogen cars, which will make use of the ‘Midlands Hydrogen Ring’ network of refuelling stations backed by the British Hydrogen Forum.

Tags: cars, ford, hydrogen