ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the different stories that are told by visionaries and engineers and argues that the visions are competing for dominance. It focuses on automotive applications and the set of technologies that make up a hydrogen car. Various short histories of competing visions, of hydrogen production and storage solutions, show how the technologies are surrounded by promises of their future potential to the lack of potential of the competing options. Hydrogen visions can be divided into two categories— practical applications of the technologies; and drivers of societal change. The visions of hydrogen as important alternatives arose for the first time when fuel cells were developed and nuclear energy promised to be an endless, clean and cheap supplier of electricity. Hydrogen production by means of electrolysis of water is expensive, certainly when renewable electricity is used. The chapter argues that hydrogen is much more than the most abundant element in the universe.
