In the automotive world, many manufacturers still see hydrogen technology as a kind of gas factory, with production and R&D costs quite staggering, especially compared to electricity.

In the trucking world, hydrogen is seen as a great alternative to diesel, with almost the same range on long tripssomething electric doesn’t allow right now, even if Tesla and its Semi seem to be on the right track, while other heavy-duty truck manufacturers are also working on technologies that allow electric trucks to be deployed, but over shorter distances.

After electric scooters, hydrogen scooters?

On the side of two-wheeled vehicles, if the motorcycle universe is still quite conservative with few 100% electric offers, especially on the side of big cubes, for scooters, it is a real wave that is currently taking place, with many Chinese manufacturers, taking advantage of the strengthening of legislation in cities, offering inexpensive and technically interesting electric two-wheelers.

For technical reasons, hydrogen technology seems very difficult to set up on two-wheelers. However, influenced by Kawasaki and Yamaha, Four major historical Japanese manufacturers (Kawasaki, Yamaha, Honda and Suzuki) announce an alliance to jointly develop hydrogen motorcycles and scooters.

Significant economies of scale

This alliance is apparently aimed at reducing research and development costs, as we see in the automotive world, through platform sharing or engine synergies.

In this field, it is Kawasaki that seems to have made the most progress in this technology, and furthermore, under its impetus, HySE (for “Hydrogen Small Mobility and Engine Technology”) was born. an alliance aimed at accelerating the development of new engine technologies that use hydrogen as fuel for “low mobility” vehicles.

At this point, we don’t know much more about how this energy will be used. The four brands announced that they have focused on three main areas of research, namely hydrogen engines, hydrogen refueling systems and fuel delivery systems.