Today, 04.06.2022, was an exciting day in Sacramento, California thanks to the CFCP’s (California Fuel Cell Partnership) Hydrogen Village event, which brought together companies from across the hydrogen ecosystem to show off what they are up to.

Star of the show was probably Hyperion Motor’s XP-1.  Hyperion is still expecting the XP-1 to have a driving range of 1,000 miles (and sadly puts a Prius to shame), which is a testament to the power of hydrogen fuel cell technology.  However, the XP-1’s price tag is several thousand dollars north of the MSRP for a Prius, which means it is probably not coming to a garage near you any time soon.

Toyota was also in attendance both with its second generation Mirai and also with the class-8 Hino and Kenworth trucks (Hino truck) which rely on Toyota fuel cells.

Chart also had a representative at the hydrogen village, since it is the premier storage tank maker for hydrogen and other industrial gases.  Chart is really good at keeping things cool, and that is good news for the hydrogen and fuel cell industry.  After all, any H2GP racer will tell you that the more hydrogen you can cram into a storage canister the better.  (Fun fact, the nitrogen that Starbucks puts into some of its drinks comes from Chart.)

Overall, the hydrogen village event was another reminder that the hydrogen and fuel cell industry is a serious multi-billion dollar industry.  The industry has a plethora of job openings around the world, and the skills needed to fill most of those job openings are developed in Horizon Educational’s H2GP program.  Another aspect of the industry is that new companies are always being formed, which is the case of Hydroplane.  Hydroplane is just coming out of stealth mode and expect to hear a lot more about them as we move forward in time.  If the current crop of companies and job openings do not sound exciting enough (hard to imagine), then tomorrow a person will have a new crop of companies with new openings that may be a great fit.