Germany’s Hydrogen Refueling Network Looks Impressive Until You Do The Math

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Someone recently pointed me at a chart published by H2 Mobility that shows hydrogen dispensed per month across its German refueling network climbing steadily over time. The chart is visually persuasive. The blue area rises from near zero in 2017 to roughly 59 tons per month in early 2026. It looks like success. Hydrogen mobility appears to be scaling. The problem is that tons per month is not a useful metric for evaluating fueling infrastructure. Infrastructure economics depend on utilization per site, not aggregate volumes across a network. When infrastructure performance is presented only as total output, it hides the operational math that determines whether the system is viable.

H2 Mobility exists to build hydrogen refueling infrastructure in Germany. The company was formed in 2015 as a consortium of industrial gas firms, oil majors, and vehicle manufacturers attempting to solve, most charitably, a classic chicken and egg problem. Hydrogen vehicles would not sell without fueling stations. Private investors would not build fueling stations without vehicles. The shareholders include Air Liquide, Linde, Shell, TotalEnergies, OMV, Hyundai, Daimler Truck, and the hydrogen infrastructure investment fund Hy24. The industrial gas firms have an interest in expanding hydrogen demand. The oil majors are promoting hydrogen as an energy carrier to avoid having their hydrocarbon reserve values disappear. Vehicle manufacturers want fueling infrastructure to support fuel cell and hydrogen internal combustion vehicles because they are failing to accept the market message on battery electric. In that context, H2 Mobility was never structured like a normal fuel retailer. It is infrastructure built far ahead of demand.

The 59 tons per month figure looks large until it is translated into operational terms. Fifty nine tons equals 59,000 kilograms of hydrogen. The H2 Mobility network currently operates about 72 stations across Germany. Dividing monthly demand across those stations yields about 819 kilograms per station per month. Spread across 30 days that equals roughly 27 kilograms per station per day. Rounded up slightly the network averages about 30 kilograms per station per day. Infrastructure viability is determined by throughput per site. Thirty kilograms per day is the number that matters. Extending that backward to 2015, it only looks good in comparison to the every more homeopathic averages dispensed previously.

Hydrogen vehicles provide a straightforward way to interpret that number. A fuel cell passenger vehicle such as a Toyota Mirai or Hyundai Nexo consumes roughly 1 kilogram of hydrogen per 100 kilometers. Typical refueling amounts are 3 to 4 kilograms. A station dispensing 30 kilograms per day can therefore serve roughly 7 to 10 cars per day. That is the operational scale implied by the headline chart. Eight cars per day per station.

Fuel infrastructure normally operates at far higher throughput levels. A typical gasoline station in Germany sells roughly 3 to 5 million liters of fuel per year. That corresponds to 8,000 to 15,000 liters per day depending on location. A gasoline vehicle refill averages around 40 liters. Dividing those figures implies roughly 200 to 300 vehicles per day passing through an average fuel station. Even a modest rural station often serves more than 100 vehicles per day. Hydrogen stations dispensing 7 to 10 cars per day operate an order of magnitude below even the smallest conventional fuel infrastructure throughput.

This pattern is not new. H2 Mobility’s network expanded steadily through the late 2010s while vehicle demand remained minimal. Germany had fewer than 2,000 hydrogen passenger vehicles even at the peak of the technology’s promotion. During that period the network grew from fewer than 20 stations in 2015 to over 100 stations by 2023. Hydrogen demand grew slowly over the same period. When total monthly dispensing volumes are converted into station throughput the numbers remain small for most of the network’s history. Early years saw less than 1 kilogram per station per day. By 2020 average throughput was still around 3 kilograms per station per day. By 2023 the number had risen to roughly 11 kilograms per station per day. The current figure of about 30 kilograms per station per day represents the highest utilization the network has ever achieved.

The improvement did not come primarily from rapid growth in hydrogen vehicle demand. It came from closing stations. In 2024 and 2025 H2 Mobility shut down more than 20 stations across Germany, mostly 700 bar sites designed for passenger vehicles. The network shrank from roughly 105 stations to around 72. Demand continued to rise modestly, but the sharp increase in average throughput per station came largely from reducing the denominator in the calculation. Closing underperforming stations improves utilization statistics, but it does not transform the underlying economics.

The financial statements provide the clearest picture of those economics. H2 Mobility’s audited accounts for 2023 show revenue of €7.6 million. Total operating expenses were about €34.5 million. The company recorded a net loss of roughly €26 million. Those numbers imply that revenue covered only about 22% of total operating costs. Personnel costs were about €4.9 million. Depreciation of station infrastructure accounted for roughly €7.7 million. Other operating expenses including maintenance, electricity, and service contracts totaled nearly €13.9 million. Direct material and purchased services costs were about €8 million. The cost structure reflects the complexity of hydrogen fueling infrastructure. Stations require high pressure compressors, chillers, specialized storage tanks, safety systems, and regular maintenance by specialized technicians.

Looking at the network on a per station basis helps illustrate the magnitude of the gap. With roughly 105 stations operating during 2023, average revenue per station was around €72,000 per year. Average total cost per station was roughly €330,000 per year when dividing total operating costs across the network. Each station therefore lost roughly €250,000 annually on average. Even if demand grows modestly, the gap between revenue and cost remains large. Hydrogen stations must maintain complex high pressure systems regardless of how much fuel they sell.

In earlier analyses I examined hydrogen refueling economics using both California’s retail hydrogen network and the hydrogen bus refueling station in Aberdeen. The numbers converge surprisingly closely. The Kittybrewster hydrogen station in Aberdeen, which cost roughly £1 million to build, recorded operating costs of about £325,000 per year, close to 30% of capital cost annually once compressor maintenance, electrolysis equipment servicing, and system monitoring were included. Comparable analyses of California’s high pressure hydrogen stations point to operating burdens commonly in the range of roughly 10% to 30% of capital cost per year once electricity for compression and chilling, maintenance contracts, parts replacement, and site servicing are included. With typical station capital costs in the $2 million to $3 million range, that corresponds to several hundred thousand dollars per year in operating expense. Against that cost structure, an H2 Mobility station dispensing roughly 30 kilograms per day produces about €130,000 in annual revenue at €12 per kilogram. Even before accounting for hydrogen supply costs or capital recovery, the operating burden alone is much larger than the revenue produced by the average station.

Station economics depend on throughput. A typical hydrogen station designed for passenger vehicles has a capacity of roughly 200 kilograms per day. Heavy duty stations designed for trucks may target 1,000 kilograms per day. The H2 Mobility network averaging around 30 kilograms per day operates at roughly 15% of passenger station design capacity and roughly 3% of heavy duty station design capacity. Break even economics require throughput closer to the design capacity range. The gap between actual demand and viable utilization remains substantial.

Passenger hydrogen vehicles were the original justification for the network. Those vehicles did not scale. Germany has only a few thousand hydrogen cars on the road after more than a decade of promotion. Vehicle manufacturers have scaled back fuel cell passenger programs. H2 Mobility has responded by shifting its focus toward heavy vehicles including trucks and buses. Stations are being upgraded to support 350 bar fueling for commercial vehicles. This strategic pivot reflects the reality that the passenger vehicle market did not materialize.

Heavy vehicle hydrogen adoption faces similar challenges. Battery electric trucks convert electricity directly into motion. Hydrogen trucks convert electricity into hydrogen through electrolysis, compress the hydrogen, transport it to fueling stations, then convert it back into electricity using a fuel cell. Each step introduces efficiency losses and additional cost. German policy institutions have recognized this. The German Court of Auditors and the German Council of Economic Experts have both concluded that hydrogen road transport is economically inferior to battery electric alternatives for most freight applications. Their analyses point to the higher energy losses and infrastructure costs inherent in hydrogen systems.

International experience reinforces this conclusion. China saw a rapid rise in the sales of battery electric heavy trucks in 2025, taking over 30% of market share for the year and displacing LNG and hydrogen trucks. Year over year, hydrogen heavy truck sales fell from an already small 5,000 units in 2024 to 3,000 units in 2025. Battery trucks scale where charging infrastructure and predictable routes exist. Hydrogen truck deployments remain limited pilot programs in most markets. Infrastructure cost and fuel price remain barriers to widespread adoption. The same structural economics that constrained hydrogen passenger vehicles apply to heavy vehicles.

Closing stations has improved network averages but has not made the company profitable. When low throughput stations close, average utilization rises because the weakest sites disappear from the calculation. Revenue per remaining station increases slightly. Costs decline somewhat because fewer sites require maintenance. The underlying economics remain challenging. Even if H2 Mobility’s annual losses fall from around €26 million to roughly €20 million due to consolidation, the network still operates far from break even.

The roughly €210 million losses over H2 Mobility’s life are real but small relative to the financial scale of the shareholders backing the project. Companies such as Shell, TotalEnergies, and Linde each generate tens or hundreds of billions of euros in annual revenue. A network losing €20 million to €25 million per year represents a small expenditure within those balance sheets. From the perspective of these companies the hydrogen refueling network is a necessary bet on a future that won’t arrive. Without hydrogen, Shell and TotalEnergies won’t exist in anything like their current forms. Without hydrogen as a transportation fuel, Linde and Air Liquide will be left with steeply declining hydrogen delivery revenues. Without the pretense of being part of solving the climate crisis, fossil fuel firms will lose social license to operate.

Seen through that lens the H2 Mobility network functions less like a commercial fuel business and more like a marketing exercise. Infrastructure exists. Hydrogen vehicles can refuel. Charts showing rising tons of hydrogen dispensed convey an image of progress. The operational math reveals something different. Each station serves a handful of vehicles per day. Each station loses hundreds of thousands of euros annually. Network utilization remains far below the levels required for sustainable economics.

As a note, it’s quite probable that H2 Mobility’s quarterly reports to its funders show nothing like the above contextualized charts, but instead show the apparent growth chart as if it’s a success story. In my assessment of hydrogen for transportation and energy studies and reports over the past several years, I’ve consistently found a clear pattern of glowing executive summaries that highlight denominator free increases and bodies that present the realistic data in the least accessible way possible. No light scan of the studies and reports reveals the reality of close to non-existent use and high costs.

The chart that triggered this analysis is not incorrect. Hydrogen dispensing volumes have increased over time. The numbers are real. The missing context is station utilization. When hydrogen demand is divided across the number of stations in operation, the result is a network operating far below viable throughput. Infrastructure economics depend on utilization per site. H2 Mobility’s stations in Germany will never achieve that. The question is when they will be rolled up completely instead of continuing to sell a message of a hydrogen transportation future that will never arrive.