Commitment to fuel cell technology?: How to interpret carmakers’ efforts in this radical technology

Since the early 1990s, fuel cell (FC) technology has received a great deal of attention from the automotive industry. Its high efficiency and low emissions have made the technology become one of the dominant technological opportunities to achieve more sustainable mobility. Under pressure of ever-increasing regulatory standards, the automotive industry has spent billions of dollars on researching and developing fuel cell vehicles (FCVs), with the objective of starting commercialization in 5–10 years time. Industry experts evaluate the industryʹs apparent commitment to FC technology optimistically as well as critically. Optimists see carmakers’ efforts as a sign of change in the industry, necessitated by regulation and societal needs of a cleaner environment. Skeptics see carmakers’ efforts in FC technology as ‘window dressing’, investing minimal amounts of resources (with maximum public exposure) while being limitedly committed to commercialize FCVs. This paper makes an attempt to nuance both views by assessing levels of R&D commitments carmakers. Based on an analysis of patenting behavior, this paper concludes that automotive activities go beyond window dressing, but fall short of portraying full commitment to this radical technology.