The hydrogen sector in transport needs Europe

This note identifies the two major handicaps that the hydrogen sector in transport must overcome: the network effect between infrastructure and vehicle use likely to create coordination problems between industrial players; the importance of experience effects within and between producers for lower costs. To overcome these two handicaps, a public policy should ideally be articulated on two levels: a local level for coordination between actors, and a European level to generate sufficient volumes. The example of hydrogen buses is taken but it could be applied to other uses: utility vehicles, heavy goods vehicles, dump trucks, trains, etc. The French approach is based on the notion of a regional ecosystem, around a city, a community of local authorities, even a department or a region... The example of hydrogen buses shows the interest of a loop between the local level and the European level, the only level sufficiently significant to generate the volume effects capable of generating the cost reductions necessary for the competitiveness of the hydrogen sector