“If the UK government wants to decarbonise, then get a hydrogen strategy, decarbonise the commercial vehicle sector and roll it out to passenger vehicles,” says Jürgen Guldner, BMW’s manager of hydrogen technology.

BMW has built nearly 100 hydrogen-powered iX5 (pictured) cars and will market a commercial version before 2030.

The UK has closed eight of its 20 hydrogen filling stations. “What we’ve seen in the last few months is stations closing in the UK because there’s not enough consumption,” says Guldner, “so we’ll have to see if the commercial vehicle sector is able to kickstart it. If there is infrastructure being built out in the UK, we will be ready to bring a car to the market in the UK. If there’s no hydrogen fuelling stations in the UK, we will bring the cars to Japan and Korea and the rest of Europe, where there is a fuelling station network being built.”

Last week BMW CEO Oliver Zipse, called hydrogen: “The missing piece in the jigsaw when it comes to emission-free mobility,” adding, “one technology on its own will not be enough to enable climate-neutral mobility worldwide.”

Last week a survey in the Daily Mail which said that only 1 in 4 people agreed with the government’s EV strategy resulted in questions in parliament and sundry TV discussions