Hydrogen or electric car: the Belgian verdict

No, not for a private buyer in Belgium in 2026. A hydrogen car costs between €67,000 and €80,000 to buy, can only refuel at eight stations and costs more per kilometre than an electric car, often more than a petrol one. It keeps two real strengths: a five-minute fill and close to 700 km of range.

An electric car that makes its own power on board, for three times the energy

A hydrogen car is an electric car. Same motor, same wheels, same silence. The difference lies in where the current comes from: instead of a big battery charged at a post, it carries a tank of hydrogen compressed to 700 bar and a fuel cell that turns it into electricity as you drive.

That detour has a price, and it shows up in percentages. According to a Horváth & Partners study relayed by InsideEVs, well-to-wheel efficiency reaches 70 to 80% for a battery-electric car and only 25 to 35% for a fuel cell, because the hydrogen has to be produced by electrolysis, compressed, transported and turned back into current. Britain's Institute of the Motor Industry puts it at 70% against 22%. Energuide, a Belgian energy information site, concludes in its article of 5 January 2026 that an electric car travels roughly 2.5 to 3 times as far on the same starting electricity.

And how clean is the hydrogen itself? According to the International Energy Agency's Global Hydrogen Review 2025, world demand came close to 100 million tonnes in 2024, of which less than 1% was low-emissions hydrogen. The rest comes mostly from fossil fuels. For a serious emissions comparison, our piece on the carbon footprint of an electric car against a petrol or diesel one gives the battery-side figures.

Eight public stations in Belgium, and none in Brussels

Eight stations. That is all.

Energuide lists eight operating stations in January 2026: Zaventem, Halle, Antwerp (two), Leuven, Erpe-Mere, Herve and Ollignies. The Colruyt Group report says its subsidiary DATS 24 operated six at the end of 2024, from Halle (opened in October 2018) to Erpe-Mere (2023), with permit applications filed for three more sites.

On that list, there is no station in the Brussels Region, none in Namur province, none in Luxembourg province. A Brussels driver refuels at Zaventem or Halle, on the edge of the capital. For Brussels to Arlon, range is no problem for the Nexo: the 380 km round trip fits on a single tank, since Moniteur Automobile measured around 700 km in real conditions. The trouble starts the day the Zaventem pump is out of service.

A test of the Nexo published by AutoScout24 in October 2019 already complained of an inadequate and unreliable distribution network, with only two stations at the time.

What does a kilometre cost on hydrogen in Belgium?

More than on a battery, and often more than at a petrol pump. The price of a kilo, for its part, has no consensus. Touring, the Belgian motoring club, quoted €10 to €12 on average (article published in December 2024, updated in July 2025), Energuide says €15 to €25 in January 2026, and the Colruyt report publishes no price. So I worked out three scenarios rather than choose one.

The consumption figures come from separate sources: 0.98 kg per 100 km measured by Moniteur Automobile on the Hyundai Nexo (102 km per kilo, article of 11 November 2025), and 0.76 kg for the Toyota Mirai on the WLTP cycle, according to Toyota Belgium's price list of November 2020. On the electric side, I apply 18 kWh per 100 km, a common real-world consumption, at the all-in rates of the CREG, Belgium's federal energy regulator, for the third quarter of 2026 already used on this site: €0.322 per kWh in Flanders, €0.357 in Brussels, €0.378 in Wallonia.

The petrol price is the federal maximum recorded on 1 October 2026 on prix-carburant.eu, and the rapid-charging rates are those of Belgian networks recorded in July 2026 for our article on CHAdeMO. The 6 l/100 km for petrol and the 18 kWh/100 km are my starting assumptions.

Over four years at 15,000 km a year, the energy gap between a Nexo and an electric car charged at home reaches €2,972 to €3,576 with hydrogen at €12 a kilo, and €4,736 to €5,340 at €15. A driver who pays for their own fuel sees it on their statement every month, not in a brochure.

The table reads in one sentence. To run on hydrogen at the price of an electric car plugged in at home, a kilo would need to cost about €6, roughly half the lowest price I found. And the dearest rapid charger in my survey, at €0.89 per kWh, is only level with a Nexo fuelled at €15 a kilo.

What does Belgian tax change for a hydrogen car?

Almost nothing, which leaves the purchase price to decide. According to KBC Autolease, hydrogen cars follow the same rules as electric ones in 2026: 100% deductibility for an order placed this year, the last year before a gradual decline, and a benefit in kind (the taxable advantage of a company car, ATN in Belgium) worked out with the same formula. In Flanders, the exemption for electric and hydrogen cars ended on 1 January 2026.

The €1,690 annual floor only protects below €49,291.67 of catalogue value. A Nexo at around €70,000 pays 4% of its value multiplied by 6/7, which is €2,400 a year, €200 a month. A Tesla Model Y Rear-Wheel Drive at €39,990, the price recorded on 6 September 2026 for our electric SUV ranking, stays on the €140.83 floor. The €59.17 monthly gap adds up to €2,840 over a four-year contract, before you have paid for a single kilo of hydrogen. The full method is in our piece on the benefit in kind of electric company cars.

Is a five-minute fill enough to make up for it?

That is the serious objection, and I do not brush it aside. A Nexo fills in about five minutes, carries 6.7 kg of hydrogen and claims 826 km WLTP, around 700 km in real conditions according to Moniteur. A BMW iX3 40 takes 21 minutes to go from 10 to 80% at a rapid charger. When you set off from Zaventem at 7 a.m. with three hours of road ahead, those sixteen minutes are worth something.

But the conditions have to be right. The advantage applies if a station lies on your route, if it works on the day you pass, and if you accept paying the station's price per kilo. It does not apply to a commuter who charges overnight in a garage: at home, an electric car starts every morning 'full' without spending a minute on it.

As 800-volt architectures spread, the gap narrows, as our comparison of rapid charging on Belgian motorways shows. Useful checkpoints before considering a hydrogen car:

• a station open within 15 minutes of home or work
• a price per kilo displayed and confirmed in writing when you buy
• a warranty covering the fuel cell and the tank, not just the drivetrain
• a fallback plan if your home station is down for a week
• a documented resale value, which does not yet exist on such a narrow market

BMW plans around a hundred iX5 Hydrogen in Belgium by 2028

Hydrogen is not dead, it is changing target. La DH, a Belgian daily, reported on 19 November 2025 that BMW intends to sell around a hundred iX5 Hydrogen in Belgium by 2028, a country chosen as a pilot because companies here make hydrogen from surplus solar and wind energy. A hundred cars: a pilot project, not a market. For scale, Business AM counted only eight new hydrogen cars registered in Belgium in 2019.

Colruyt's stations tell another story: their hydrogen consumption rose 2.5-fold in the 2024/25 financial year. I have not driven a Nexo, and I do not claim to judge how it behaves on the road. My verdict rests on what can be checked: the price, the map of stations and the energy bill.

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