Hydrogen Cars vs Electric Cars: Why France and Europe Back Batteries for Drivers

Hydrogen in France and Europe: Promise vs Reality

Hydrogen has been heavily promoted in Europe as a “fuel of the future”, but the reality on the road is very limited for private cars. The EU and France now see hydrogen primarily as a solution for heavy trucks, buses, trains, ships and energy‑intensive industry, not everyday motorists.

Across Europe there were only a few thousand hydrogen fuel‑cell passenger cars in circulation by 2024, with Germany and France leading but still at only hundreds of vehicles each. By contrast, Europe adds over two million new electric cars per year, and hundreds of thousands of them are in France.

Hydrogen cars: small fleets, specific uses

Hydrogen passenger cars remain a tiny, highly specialised segment. In France, most fuel‑cell vehicles sit in:

Taxi pilots (for example hydrogen‑powered taxi fleets in Paris)
Company and government demonstration fleets
Local or regional projects around hydrogen hubs

France’s hydrogen strategy now channels funding into vans, buses and trucks, where long range and quick refuelling are more valuable than in a typical commuter car. EU‑wide, fuel‑cell buses and heavy vehicles dominate hydrogen mobility deployments, and they account for most of the revenue in the European fuel‑cell vehicle market.

Hydrogen infrastructure: too thin for everyday drivers

The biggest barrier for hydrogen cars is refuelling infrastructure.

France has only a few dozen hydrogen stations, clustered around major cities and industrial corridors rather than spread across the country like petrol or rapid EV chargers.
Germany leads with more than 100 hydrogen refuelling stations, but even there the network is sparse compared with EV charging points.

EU rules under the alternative fuels infrastructure regulation aim for hydrogen stations every 200 km along the main TEN‑T corridors, designed chiefly to serve heavy trucks. That is very different from the dense network needed to make hydrogen attractive to ordinary car owners.

EVs in France: from niche to normal

While hydrogen crawls forward, battery electric vehicles have exploded into the mainstream in France. Key trends:

In the first half of 2025, EVs (mainly BEVs) reached around 17–18% of new car sales in France, even as overall registrations dipped.
By late 2025, monthly plugin share in France has exceeded 30% in some months, driven by social leasing and new affordable models like the Renault 5.

France is now the second‑largest EV market in Europe after Germany, with more than 1.5 million electric vehicles on the road. Battery EVs are also central to meeting EU fleet CO₂ targets, so manufacturers are strongly incentivised to push BEV sales.

EVs in Europe: now a major chunk of the market

Across the wider EU and associated markets, EVs have become a structural part of the car market.

In 2024, more than 1.4 million new BEVs were registered in the EU, plus around 800,000 PHEVs, giving electric cars roughly 21% of new registrations.
By 2025, BEVs alone reached about 17–18% of new EU registrations year‑to‑date, with total plugins near or above a quarter of the market in some months.

In leading countries such as Norway, Denmark or the Netherlands, EV market share is above 35% and in some cases over 80–90%, making electric cars the default new purchase. This scale is nowhere close to being matched by hydrogen passenger vehicles.

Direct comparison: hydrogen cars vs EVs today

Aspect	Hydrogen cars (FCEVs)	Battery electric vehicles (BEVs)
Vehicles in use (EU)	Only a few thousand passenger FCEVs, concentrated in Germany, France and a handful of pilots.	Over 1.4 million new BEVs registered in the EU in 2024 alone, millions in the fleet.
Market share new cars	Well below 1% of registrations, effectively invisible in stats.	Around 17–18% of new EU car registrations in 2025 YTD; over 20% including PHEVs.
Main use cases	Taxi pilots, buses, heavy trucks, some vans and government fleets.	Private cars, company fleets, taxis, light vans – mainstream everyday use.
Infrastructure	Dozens of stations in France and just over 100 in Germany; sparse elsewhere, focused on corridors.	Hundreds of thousands of charge points across Europe, with dense networks in many countries.
Policy priority	EU and France target hydrogen at “hard‑to‑electrify” sectors: industry, heavy trucks, buses, shipping.	Central pillar of EU road‑transport decarbonisation and CO₂ fleet rules for manufacturers.
Technology maturity	Technically proven but small‑volume, expensive, and dependent on costly green hydrogen.	Mass‑produced, falling battery costs, wide model choice in every segment.

Policy direction: two separate roles

EU and national strategies now clearly split the roles of batteries and hydrogen.

Hydrogen is earmarked for:
- Steel, chemicals, refineries and other heavy industry
- Heavy trucks, buses, some trains and possibly shipping and aviation
- Strategic energy storage and cross‑border pipelines
Battery EVs are earmarked for:
- Private cars and company cars
- Most vans and light commercial vehicles
- Urban buses and short‑range fleets

France’s revised hydrogen plan commits billions of euros to green hydrogen production and industrial use, while its EV incentives (bonus écologique, social leasing) target battery cars for households and fleets.

So will hydrogen ever catch up for cars?

For the typical driver in France or elsewhere in Europe, hydrogen cars are unlikely to rival EVs this decade. For that to change, several tough conditions would need to be met:

Large‑scale rollout of cheap green hydrogen and refuelling infrastructure
Major cost cuts in fuel‑cell systems through mass production
Strong carmaker commitment to offering several hydrogen models

Current investment patterns suggest that by 2030 battery EVs will dominate private cars even more strongly, while hydrogen grows in the background for trucks, buses and industry.

For motorists and expats in France looking at their next car, the practical choice for low‑emission driving in the foreseeable future remains clear: an electric car or hybrid today, and increasingly a full BEV tomorrow—not a hydrogen car.