Fuel-Cell Vehicle and Hydrogen Transitions in California: Scenarios, Cost Analysis, and Workforce Implications

To achieve California’s ambitious climate goals, a shift to hydrogen fuel for some transportation sectors may be essential. In this report, the authors explore the build-out of a hydrogen fuel distribution system including uptake of light-, medium-, and heavy-duty fuel cell electric vehicles. The analysis of Base and High Case scenarios includes costs of building and operating a hydrogen vehicle and fuel system and estimates workforce impacts. The authors consider scenarios with about 125,000 vehicles by 2030 in the Base Case and 250,000 in the high case. This increases by an order of magnitude to 2045. Vehicle and station investment costs associated with the Base Case reach anywhere from $4 to 12 billion USD by 2030 and increase by a factor of eight by 2045. Costs per kg of hydrogen, including fuel transmission to stations and station costs delivered to vehicles, could be in the range of $4 to 8 per kg. This becomes $6 to 10/kg as a final delivered cost, if production of hydrogen were to cost $2/kg. Workforce impacts in the Base Case include 600 to 2,200 jobs created by 2030, rising rapidly thereafter. This report was prepared by the ITS-UC Davis Energy Futures Hydrogen Program in partnership with the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.

• Record URL:
  • http://doi.org/10.7922/G2H70D5K
• Corporate Authors:

  University of California, Davis

  Institute of Transportation Studies
  Davis, CA  United States  95616

  University of California, Los Angeles

  Institute of Transportation Studies
  Los Angeles, CA  United States 

  State of California

  ,    
• Authors:
  • Fulton, Lew
  • Yang, Chris
  • Burke, Andrew
  • Acharya, Tri Dev
  • Bourne, Beth
  • Coffee, Daniel
  • Kong, David
• Publication Date: 2024-7

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 63p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Costs; Economic impacts; Forecasting; Fuel cell vehicles; Hydrogen fuels; Jobs; Market assessment
• Geographic Terms: California
• Subject Areas: Economics; Energy; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01926996
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: UC-ITS-RIMI-3O
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Aug 12 2024 3:05PM