Exactly. It's a very cynical play by oil and gas companies collaborating with car manufacturers. The play here is to get paid to "study" the obvious (it won't e

Exactly. It's a very cynical play by oil and gas companies collaborating with car manufacturers. The play here is to get paid to "study" the obvious (it won't ever be profitable to produce these things) while delaying the inevitable (demise of the oil and gas industry and its dependent ICE car manufacturing business). The oil companies are also doing this because the goto method of producing hydrogen involves large amounts of gas. Much larger than would be used if you burned the gas directly in a combustion engine. So, they are getting subsidized to produce more gas while shedding crocodile tears over global warming and green washing their business. Toyota has very reluctantly produced more EVs in the last year than the total amount of hydrogen cars it has ever produced. That number is in the lower tens of thousands spread over a decade. Their EV production numbers aren't very good either but it absolutely dwarfs their hydrogen car production numbers. And soon on a quarterly and eventually even monthly basis. Toyota of course is by far the most enthusiastic hydrogen car proponent. They can't shut up talking about it and are flogging that dead horse at every opportunity they have to explain why they are so far behind producing EVs. But for all their talk about hydrogen, they are not lifting a finger to actually scale hydrogen car production. Because it doesn't make any economical sense whatsoever. Never has. They know this very well. Because they've been "studying" this topic for decades. They know everything there is to know about the viability of hydrogen cars. That's the whole reason the number of vehicles is so pathetically low. The number is the absolute bare minimum needed to grab the subsidies. Per vehicle, the subsidies are orders of magnitude the sales price of the car. Which is typically far below cost price. Producing hydrogen car has never been profitable. The game here is to minimize the money lost producing these things while maximizing the subsidies grabbed.