Cars have never been a huge focus for me (more of a necessity than a passion) but, at my husband’s insistence, we do go to the Canadian Auto Show in Toronto every four or five years to look at the new models and think through possible future purchases.

When we went several years ago, every manufacturer seemed to have a display centred on electric cars. This was the way of the future, clearly. You couldn’t miss it.

But something seems to have happened. When we went this year, while there were lots of electric cars on display, there was little of the hype from just a few years earlier. And the word we saw more of was something I don’t even remember seeing last time: hydrogen.

Are we almost post-electric?

Did I just wake up and miss the news about electric cars NOT being the next big automotive technology? It seems I might have. I stumbled across this Jim Kenzie review in the Toronto Star comparing a Hyundai electric car versus one of its hydrogen fuel cell cars. Check out what he had to say about the future.

Hyundai … knows as any thinking person does that gasoline will continue to be by far the dominant player for at least another half-century …

Hyundai also understands that battery-powered vehicles will never be more than bit players — again, where are we supposed to get enough electricity to replace all the gasoline we burn?

Simply, we never will.

Battery-powered electrics will mainly be a bridge to the obvious medium-to-long-term solution, which of course is hydrogen-fuel-cell electrics.

You can read the full review here.

Hydrogen may lead

It seems that many in the automotive industry agree with Jim Kenzie. Despite Elon Musk’s view that hydrogen fuel cells are “mind-bogglingly stupid”, a 2017 survey of 1,000 global auto executives concluded hydrogen fuel cell technology will ultimately outperform battery-powered electric vehicles.

A key reason? You can fill up a hydrogen-powered car in five minutes (the same as today’s gas), but electric cars can take hours.

Future plans

In today’s society, new technologies are constantly being developed and trends are forever changing. It’s  important to keep this in mind when contemplating estate plans and future financial investments – what appears to be the “next big thing” one year may be forgotten the next.

My conclusions from all of this are simple. My electric car guilt is now gone. I’m not going to line up for a Tesla or stress about the fact that I haven’t gone electric. Instead, I’ll look for other ways to reduce my automotive carbon footprint – and keep my eye on how hydrogen fuel cells are evolving.

Thanks for reading!
Suzana Popovic-Montag