Question: Why can't we just have bigger cars so that all the hydrogen can fit?

Jemma Rowlandson answered on 20 Jun 2014:

Hi!

I know! Would it not be much more simple if we made the cars bigger? Unfortunately we can’t. The big problem with hydrogen is that it takes up an awful lot of space as a gas. You would need a small truck filled with hydrogen gas following behind to have enough to power a small car. The bigger you car then the more hydrogen you need to power it, and so the more space it takes up. This is why we normally store hydrogen in a compressed gas cylinder.

There’s also lots of practical problems. All garages and car parks are built for fairly normal sized cars. If you make the car too big then you would have problems parking it anywhere. The size of our roads is also a big problem. Some American cars like the Mustang are a lot wider than British cars. They actually have a lot of problems driving down some of our narrow country roads, and occasionally get stuck! The same thing would happen if we made hydrogen cars a similar size.