AUSTIN (KXAN) — A caravan of cars from the University of Texas in Austin made a journey from the state capital to Houston this June. The journey is one that many people take every year, but this trip was a little tricky.
The three cars run on hydrogen fuel. Also, there is only one commercial hydrogen fuel pump in the state, and it’s located at the J.J. Pickle Research Campus in North Austin.
“We just knew we had one shot,” said Grace Childers, a chemical engineering student with the Center for Electromechanics at UT Austin. Childers drove one of the three cars to Houston.
The students with the Center for Electromechanics attended the Hydrogen Technology Expo as part of the trip.
“I think that was a 365-mile round trip, so we had to get to Houston and back on one fill with all three cars,” Childers said. She said there were only two scary parts of the trip: Houston traffic and when one student pulled over to rescue a stray kitten.
The Center for Electromechanics opened its hydrogen technology facility, The Hydrogen Protohub, in April 2024. Besides the hydrogen fuel pump, the facility also has machines that generate hydrogen fuel and a generator that provides power to a nearby building.
Hydrogen-powered cars are zero-emission vehicles. The caravan was made up of Toyota Mirai research vehicles, each built to use hydrogen fuel.
Traveling on air
“A similar caravan was done 20 years ago in California,” said Mike Lewis, Director of the Center for Electromechanics. That trip was so monumental, the caravan had police escorts. Since then, the technology has proven itself and is considered safe.
Now, California has several hydrogen fuel pumps across the state. Texas still has the one, but Lewis said a recent grant from the Capital Area Council of Governments and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is aimed at building more.
“I believe in the next handful of years, those stations will start getting deployed, and we’ll start seeing fuel cell trucks on the road here in Texas,” Lewis said.
Hydrogen vs Gas vs Electric
Hydrogen-fueled cars lie somewhere between gas and electric-powered cars. Like gas-powered vehicles, they need fuel. In this case, hydrogen gas. Like electric, they produce zero emissions, just water, and are very quiet.
“We’re going to need fueling stations deployed around the country, right? Much like we have gasoline stations today,” Lewis said.
There are currently three hydrogen-powered cars on the market, but Honda has ended production of their models. This leaves cars by Toyota and Hyundai. Only about 14-thousand Mirai sedans have been sold since 2015, according to Car and Driver.
These cars use the same motor as an electric car does, but fuel cells instead of a battery. Hydrogen combines with oxygen, producing electricity and turning the motor over. Because hydrogen combines so well with other elements, it is a good energy carrier.
The high-pressure fuel cells are designed to survive virtually any crash, making them exceptionally safe.
However, fueling stations are rare, it’s hard to capture hydrogen in a pure state from the air, and the fuel is more expensive than gas.
The three cars that traveled across Texas from Austin to Houston and back made the full trip with a quarter tank of fuel left.
“We had a number of students interning with us this summer. We wanted them to be a part of it. We wanted them to get exposed to the expo and the companies and industries working in hydrogen. So we decided to stop talking about it for once and actually make it happen,” Lewis said.