Northern California fuel cell vehicle lessees can’t fill up their hydrogen cars like they normally do because of a supply shortage.

It’s mayhem for Fuel Cell vehicle lessees in Northern California as Honda Clarity and Toyota Mirai owners are struggling to find places to refuel. According to Founder of True Zero Shane Stephens who graciously pops up on the unofficial Honda Clarity Facebook Group, the latest supply shortage update he gave today (Jan. 29,2019) is an update of the first post Stephens made a week ago informing the group of said shortage. In other words, FCV lessees in Northern California are on day 7 of a week-long supply issue that sees no end in sight thanks to little to no communication from Air Products, their supplier.

Since I have not talked about Northern California’s hydrogen infrastructure before, it’s worth mentioning how many stations we’re actually dealing with and who supplies them. According to cafcp.org there is

1.  Emeryville- Linde
2.  Fremont- True Zero
3. Hayward- True Zero
4.  Mountain View- Linde
5.  Palo Alto- Air Liquide
6.  San Jose- True Zero
7.  S. San Francisco- True Zero
8. West Sacramento- Linde

I’ve included West Sacramento as part of the greater Bay Area.

As you can see, there are only eight stations that serve the San Francisco Bay Area so a disruption at one station causes a ripple effect on all the other stations as those stations try to keep up with demand they didn’t have before. All “True Zero” stations above get their supply from Air Products which is currently having issues.

Here’s Shane’s statement below,

View post on imgur.com

Since FCV owners are left in the dark, your guess is as good as mine when supply will return to normal. Hydrogen IS getting out to those True Zero stations affected, just not enough to keep Clarity and Mirai owners happy.

Here’s a three-day snapshot of True Zero’s Fremont station.

View post on imgur.com

Deliveries are made sometime in the middle of the night but the morning rush of regular fillups depletes available hydrogen supply by the middle of the day. Fillups of just 125 KG is enough to fill up just 25 cars.

Honda and Toyota have reimbursed Clarity and Mirai owners in the past so I’m keen to see how they respond to inquiries this time around.

No word if any Hyundai Nexos have made their way up to Northern California but this latest infrastructure news does not bode well for potential Nexo lessees.

As always, I’ll update you all of any developments in the coming days.

Source: Honda Clarity owners group on Facebook