Austria's Hydrogen Dream Collapsed Like the Elastic in an Old Pair of Underpants – Quietly and Embarrassingly

If you’ve ever wondered what happens when the wild dreams of car enthusiasts collide headfirst with the lofty hopes of green revolutionaries, look no further: Austria’s mighty oil and gas giant OMV has officially pulled the plug on its 13-year-long hydrogen fueling project — and not with a bang of champagne corks and ticker tape, but with the slow, miserable hiss of a punctured balloon.

All four remaining hydrogen stations are scheduled to shut down this summer; one in Vienna has already closed its doors. And why? The reason is deliciously simple — astronomical costs and virtually non-existent demand.
As of spring 2025, Austria boasted exactly 62 registered hydrogen-powered vehicles. And of those, only five — yes, a whopping five! — belonged to private individuals. The rest were company fleet experiments. Now, with the stations closing, these few lonely cars will be about as effective as a cow on an ice rink — because there’s nowhere left for them to refuel.

OMV, who back in 2015 in Innsbruck proudly proclaimed hydrogen to be “the key technology of the future,” has since fallen as silent as a church mouse. Asked how much money was sunk into this beautiful fiasco, they — surprise, surprise — politely declined to comment.

Of course, in theory it was all a marvellous idea: endlessly available, low-emission fuel generated from the sun and the wind. In practice, however, it turned out to be as expensive as keeping a princess in tiaras and about as efficient as using a leaf blower in the middle of a hurricane.
Recent studies confirmed that producing "green hydrogen" costs more than twice what was initially projected.

And the cars themselves? Take the Hyundai Nexo, for example — a noble hydrogen-powered machine that, when it launched in Germany back in 2018, cost around €70,000. For that kind of money, you could have yourself a proper luxury sedan — or three very decent used BMWs.

So, Austria’s grand hydrogen adventure fizzled out in a way that was not so much tragic as it was awkward. Thirteen years of grand speeches about a radiant future and limitless potential, all ending with four deserted fueling stations and 62 lonely hydrogen cars that will soon need to start booking parking spots at the scrapyard.

If this was the much-heralded “future,” perhaps we’ll just stick to petrol for a little longer. Or maybe hop on a bicycle.
Or buy a donkey.
At least those still actually work.