Hydrogen isn’t going to happen. So stop holding your breath.
Beyond all of the other problems with hydrogen (production, transportation, storage, dispensing, etc.) the economic truth is that hydrogen vehicles are, at best, 60% efficient. And hydrogen production either relies on fossil fuel production (for “grey” hydrogen), or electrolysis (“green” hydrogen). Electrolysis itself is only about 66% efficient.
This efficiency matters in this comparison because when you put 100 units of energy to get 66 units of energy out, and then put that into a vehicle that can only transform that into around 40 units of motive power, you will always do better putting that energy into an EV which is 95% efficient (you put in 100 units of energy and get 95 units out). In terms of cars, you can charge more than twice as many cars with this input energy as you’d be able to with hydrogen. There is no world where that makes any sort of economic sense for anyone.
With hydrogen vehicles, you get a vehicle that needs a lot more energy to go less distance. It’s the worst of all worlds. And that’s just discussing the efficiency values — and not all the losses that occur during all the transfer stages. Hydrogen needs to be kept cryogenically cold (which also requires more energy to maintain) — in effect, there is no possible work in which hydrogen replaces a modern EV.
The problem with this analysis is that the “EV mandate” was never an “EV mandate”. It didn’t stipulate that only EVs could be sold after 2035 — it always also permitted other forms of Zero-Emissions Vehicles (and PHEVs with a minimum battery-only distance (80km IIRC?)) — including Hydrogen vehicles.
And Hyundai’s interest in hydrogen is just hedging its bets. They have one hydrogen model (the Nexxo), but multiple EV models. And if the number sold in Canada isn’t zero, it’s likely pretty close. They can be as interested as they want to be, but global sales are abysmal, hydrogen availability is low, the hydrogen is expensive, the hydrogen isn’t always green, and storage and transportation are significant challenges.
It doesn’t matter who is “interested” in hydrogen — it’s still not happening. But it was always allowed by the “EV mandate”, so it wouldn’t need to be cancelled for any MOUs.