Honda and General Motors, two of the world’s largest carmakers, have decided to discontinue production of a jointly developed hydrogen fuel cell system by the end of 2026, but the Japanese brand isn’t totally backing away from the technology.
In a media release, Honda announced the hydrogen fuel cell system, currently produced at Fuel Cell System Manufacturing LLC (FCSM), its joint venture with GM, will end later this year, just shy of 10 years after the Michigan plant was established.
Claimed to be the world’s first hydrogen fuel cell joint venture, the system itself made its debut at the 2023 Brussels Expo, though without any technical details other than announcing plans to put it into a Honda CR-V for production.
However, despite Honda admitting “this collaboration yielded some positive results”, it announced that it and GM had “reached an agreement to discontinue production of fuel cell systems at FCSM”.
From now, “Honda will continue to leverage next-generation fuel cell system technologies developed independently by Honda and strive to further expand business opportunities in order to grow its hydrogen business as one of the new core businesses of Honda.”
The latest announcement follows GM saying in October last year that it was closing down its in-house Hydrotec brand, and would instead focus on FCSM for future fuel cells.
It marks the latest blow for hydrogen powered vehicles, which have struggled to gain mainstream adoption due to a lack of incentives and infrastructure support, with the Toyota Mirai and Hyundai Nexo standing as two of the very few mainstream FCEVs available.
In 2023, US FCEV sales didn’t even surpass 3000 deliveries. Though the upcoming launch of an FCEV Honda CR-V could change this, it’s unlikely to sway the backwards momentum for the technology.
Last year, Dutch automotive conglomerate Stellantis in July announced it would end development of FCEVs, citing a lack of demand and infrastructure.
Despite this, BMW and Toyota have doubled down on the technology recently, and have been working together to develop FCEV related systems.
It’s understood Honda is pushing on with the FCEV Honda CR-V, as it aims for all of its products and corporate activities to go carbon neutral by 2050.
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