Tesla Inc TSLA executive Rohan Patel on Tuesday termed government incentives for the utilization of Hydrogen an ‘illogical government addiction,’ echoing the sentiments of company CEO Elon Musk.
What Happened: Patel said in an X post that the investment into Hydrogen is due to the ‘wild amount’ of lobbying by the industry. However, all investment and lobbying will not result in anything useful, he said.
“It’ll just be an embarrassment for those who continue to spend public dollars on a technology that comparatively makes no sense from an efficiency and cost perspective,” Patel wrote.
While expressing sympathies for those in Japan, Korea, and California who sought to fund Hydrogen transportation infrastructure, Patel said, “But the evidence from years of trying is crystal clear – it ain’t gonna work.”
According to the U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the industry announced unprecedented investments in clean hydrogen production in 2023. Six new applications were submitted to the DOE Loan Programs Office for hydrogen-related projects totaling $4.9 billion in loan guarantee requests.
Why It Matters: Musk has long expressed skepticism over hydrogen as an efficient fuel source. In May 2022, Musk said the world would overwhelmingly choose batteries over hydrogen for storing energy and termed the latter “the most dumb thing I could possibly imagine for energy storage.”
He also ridiculed government funding for hydrogen transport infrastructure in California last year saying it “makes no sense.”
However, the proponents of Hydrogen for transport infrastructure including Nikola Corp. NKLA believe Hydrogen to be a great source of energy given its enormous quantities around the world. Further, Hydrogen on burning produces only water as a waste product and is very dense when compressed into a fuel cell.
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