Hydrogen has long been touted as the solution to electrifying and decarbonizing heavy vehicles, such as long-haul trucks. But now, battery-electric trucks appear to be winning the race against their hydrogen counterparts.
Here’s why.
Why hydrogen seemed a good bet for trucks
Electric vehicles can be equipped with either fuel cells or batteries. Hydrogen fuel cells produce electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen, emitting only water in the process.
Canada’s Hydrogen Strategy, released in 2020, said fuel cells were “expected to play a significant role in trucking” and projected that — in an optimistic scenario — transportation would account for 13 per cent of hydrogen demand in Canada by 2050.
That’s because the weight of batteries would require a reduction in the load “that is unacceptable to operators” for heavy-duty trucks travelling long distances with heavy loads, the document says.
Battery-electric trucks would also need hours to charge, which might not be practical.
Hydrogen fuel cells have the potential to overcome those challenges with a higher energy density and faster refuelling times — similar to diesel, 15 minutes or less.
Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation Josie Osborne announced a pilot project that would see six heavy-duty fuel-cell trucks on the road by 2023, with the goal of replacing diesel-powered trucks to reduce emissions from the transportation sector.
A recent article posted in Chinese by Sinopec, a Chinese state-owned oil and gas company that has invested in both technologies for trucking, summed it up this way (in an English translation generated by Google and verified by CBC):
“In the past, it was generally believed that electric vehicles would replace gasoline and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would replace diesel. The comparative advantage of hydrogen fuel cell heavy trucks was zero emissions and long range.”
After trying both, China leans toward batteries
That same article drew attention from industry watchers, such as Hydrogen Insight and Electrek, because of some of its other observations: “With the advancement of electric vehicle technology and the development of charging and battery swapping infrastructure, the traditional hydrogen fuel cell vehicle scenarios of ‘medium and heavy load, long range’ are also being occupied by electric heavy trucks.”
China’s energy strategy for heavy-duty trucks, released last month, calls for the construction of 3,000 charging and battery swapping stations, Sinopec noted. Meanwhile, the policy is more vague about hydrogen trucks and infrastructure.
China is far ahead of the rest of the world in testing and adopting both technologies.
In 2025, there were about 35,000 fuel cell trucks in the world, of which 95 per cent were in China, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported in its 2026 Global Hydrogen Review last month.
China also accounted for 90 per cent of electric truck sales last year and about a quarter of the total trucks sold there were electric. Its electric truck fleet now numbers around one million, the IEA reported in May. Worldwide, when it comes to heavy freight trucks specifically, sales nearly tripled last year to 230,000.
Why batteries are pulling ahead
The growth in China is largely due to high diesel prices and an expansion of charging infrastructure, the IEA said.
That includes a special trick to solve long charging times for batteries — swapping depleted batteries for full ones, which reportedly takes five minutes.
Chinese battery giant CATL plans to have 900 commercial heavy-truck swapping stations by the end of 2026.
WATCH | CATL shows how its battery swaps work:
Meanwhile, EV battery prices have dropped globally, allowing manufacturers to extend the range of electric trucks without a proportional price increase. And while battery trucks are more than double the cost of diesel trucks upfront, their fuel costs are much lower.
The economic case for battery-electric heavy-duty trucks is improving, according to Nikita Pavlenko, the director of the fuels and aviation program at the International Council on Clean Transportation.
“In contrast, hydrogen trucks have not seen the same cost improvements and, notably, the hydrogen itself is very expensive.”
That’s not just due to the fuel itself, but the hydrogen-fuelling infrastructure.
Right now, Pavlenko said, battery technology has won the race to electrify light-duty vehicles. And for heavy trucks, “it’s looking like the door is closing for hydrogen too.”
But is it over for hydrogen trucks?
Sinopec hasn’t given up on hydrogen trucks, but says they must differentiate themselves from their battery counterparts and amplify their advantages for carrying heavy loads long distances.
Most battery-electric trucks around the world so far have been deployed on shorter, more predictable routes.
David Billedeau, president and CEO of the Canadian Hydrogen Association, maintains that batteries have “very limited applications” for long-haul trucking.
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Hydrogen has “established technologies and proven pilots and products to rapidly deploy in the trucking sector,” Billedeau said, pointing to projects in B.C. and Alberta.
The Alberta tests have been a “reasonable success,” according to David Layzell, a professor emeritus at the University of Calgary who has done research on hydrogen as a transportation fuel and co-founded the Transition Accelerator, a non-profit think-tank focused on strategies to achieve a low-carbon economy.
However, they’ve faced challenges with fuelling infrastructure and “getting a reliable supply of the hydrogen” at an affordable price.
Most hydrogen in Canada is produced from methane by fossil fuel companies, and much of it is used to process oilsands bitumen into lighter petroleum products, such as diesel. Layzell suspects one barrier to getting hydrogen for trucking is that many oil companies don’t want hydrogen competing against diesel.
“We have a little bit of conflict of interest.”
So far, less than a dozen hydrogen trucks have hit the road in Canada, and only as part of demonstration projects.
While the IEA said battery-electric truck sales grew by 35 per cent in Canada in 2025, Layzell said he isn’t convinced that what’s on the market can travel the distance that long-haul trucks currently do.
But he acknowledges that both battery and charging technology are rapidly improving.
Earlier this year, the global EV industry published the Megawatt Charging Standard, which will allow heavy, long-haul trucks to charge from 20 to 80 per cent in under 30 minutes.
“That might be something that would be a game changer,” Layzell said.
