According to Pike Research, which is a marketing and consulting firm in the green tech field that offers in-depth analysis on a wide variety of alternative energy subjects, there will be 2.8 million fuel cell vehicles on the roads by the year 2020.
The report titled “Fuel Cell Vehicles: Light Vehicles, Medium/Heavy-Duty Trucks, Transit Buses, and Hydrogen Refueling Infrastructure” offers 2020 foresight based upon the current commitment by the major automakers to build FCVs and the future commitments of governments and gas companies to supply the hydrogen refueling infrastructure.
According to the report, “Pike Research expects that, overall, FCV research will reach $4 billion in 2010, and is expected to climb to $5.13 billion globally in 2016, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.3-percent. This research spending is expected to grow in 2015 and 2016 as automakers meet their commitments to introduce vehicles to the marketplace. Once introduced, we expect light vehicle FC sales to reach 669,597 vehicles by 2020. The United States will be the largest market for FCVs in 2020 (134,049 FCVs), followed by China (129,241 FCVs) and Germany (126,783 FCVs).”
Besides light vehicle sales, Pike Research also concludes the lion’s share of FCVs introduced will be in the larger vehicle market, “Pike Research forecasts that fuel cell transit buses will be at the vanguard of the FCV movement, with sales growing at a compound annual growth rate of 31.7-percent by 2015.”
The full report from Pike Research will set you back $2,500. But, once you sign up and logon to their website, you can download the executive summary to the report for free.