Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle drivers and future station planning lessons from a mixed-methods approach

The market for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) continues to grow worldwide. At present, early adopters rely on a sparse refuelling infrastructure, and there is only limited knowledge about how they evaluate the geographic arrangement of stations when they decide to get an FCV, which is an important consideration for facilitating widespread FCV diffusion. To address this, we conducted several related studies based on surveys and interviews of early FCV adopters in California, USA, and a participatory geodesign workshop with hydrogen infrastructure planning stakeholders in Connecticut, USA. From this mixed-methods research project, we distil 15 high-level findings for planning hydrogen station infrastructure to encourage FCV adoption.