Austrian oil and gas company OMV, the only operator of publicly accessible hydrogen filling stations in the country, has announced the complete closure of this segment.

• One station in Vienna has already ceased operations, the remaining four will be closed from June 30 to September 30, 2024.
• The reason is the lack of demand and unprofitability of the business.

Why did hydrogen fail in Austria?

According to Kronen Zeitung, there are less than 70 hydrogen cars in Austria, of which only five are privately owned. With such volumes, operating filling stations is not economically feasible.

OMV said that the decision was made after analyzing the market and development strategy. The company will now focus on electromobility. The only remaining hydrogen station will be corporate and will not be available to the general public.

Trend of closing hydrogen filling stations in Europe

• Germany: H2 MOBILITY will close 22 stations (a quarter of the network) by mid-2025.
• Great Britain: Shell closed all hydrogen filling stations back in 2022, and the closures continued in 2023.
• Denmark: Everfuel abandoned hydrogen filling stations for passenger cars in 2023.

Conclusion: hydrogen in motor vehicles is losing out to electric cars

• Global sales of hydrogen cars are in the thousands (for comparison: electric cars – millions).
• In 2023-2024, sales of hydrogen cars were declining.

For now, hydrogen remains a niche solution (perhaps for trucks or industry), and passenger vehicles are confidently switching to batteries.