- Toyota recorded a 54% drop in worldwide FCEV sales so far this year.
- Last month, Toyota sold just 134 hydrogen-powered cars around the globe.
Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles or FCEVs were supposed to be the future, and Toyota was arguably the biggest proponent of this technology. It promised fill-ups as easy as putting gas in a conventional combustion car and zero harmful emissions coming out of the tailpipe.
But as we learned earlier this year, owning a hydrogen-powered car–in the United States, at least–is a major headache. Hydrogen prices have skyrocketed and filling stations have been closed, forcing owners to go out of their way to keep their zero-emissions vehicles running.
As the year comes to an end, sales numbers show that Toyota’s hydrogen car dream is nearly dead. According to the latest sales figures, the Japanese automaker sold just 134 FCEVs worldwide in November. That’s 8.2% less than the same month last year.
However, things get much worse when looking at the year-to-date figures. From January through November, Toyota sold 1,702 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles worldwide, leading to a 54% drop compared to last year. Considering December is usually a slow sales month due to the winter holidays, 2024 might become the worst year for Toyota FCEV sales since 2017. For reference, 2020 was the slowest year for FCEV sales, according to the automaker, with 1,770 units sold worldwide–but let’s not forget that the Covid pandemic was in full swing four years ago.
In Japan, the automaker’s home turf, FCEV sales amounted to just 29 units last month, a 17.1% drop year-on-year. Eleven months into 2024, 661 Toyota FCEVs were sold in Japan. In the rest of the world, Toyota sold 105 FCEVs last month, a 5.4% drop year-on-year, and 1,041 units from January to November–a 69% decline compared to 2023. Last year, Toyota sold 4,023 FCEVs worldwide.
Toyota FCEV sales worldwide
| Year / Month | Units | Year-on-year change |
| 2017 | 2,741 | 34% |
| 2018 | 2,457 | -10.4% |
| 2019 | 2,494 | 1,5% |
| 2020 | 1,770 | -29% |
| 2021 | 5,918 | 234.4% |
| 2022 | 3,924 | -33.7% |
| 2023 | 4,023 | 2.5% |
| November 2024 | 134 | -8.2% |
| January-November 2024 | 1,702 | -54% |
By comparison, Rivian, which is still considered a startup, delivered an average of 3,339 EVs per month in the third quarter. In other words, Toyota’s FCEV experiment seems to have been just that–an experiment.
That said, more and more car companies have announced their intention to build brand-new hydrogen-powered cars in the near future, claiming that the market will eventually grow thanks to more filling stations and lower hydrogen prices. BMW is set to launch a mass-market FCEV in 2028 and Honda is already selling the CR-V e:FCEV, a plug-in hybrid SUV.