Hype, the Paris-based company that operates’s the world’s biggest fleet of hydrogen taxis, has reportedly dumped the technology and pivoted to all electric cars, taking a swipe at the fossil fuel oligopoly on its way out.
Hype, which some might say was appropriately names, was launched with great fanfare in Paris in 2015 when the French capital hosted the UN climate talks that agreed on a treaty aiming to limit average global warming to as close to 1,5C as could be managed.
The company was the official taxi operator for last year’s Paris Olympics and in June last year announced, with great fanfare, a deal with mining giant Anglo American for a major expansion of hits hydrogen fuel cell taxis, which included Toyota Mirai and Hyundai Nexo vehicles, along with the Peugeot e-Expert and Citroën ë-Jumpy vehicles.
Hype described itself at the time as a “global showcase” for the benefits of hydrogen mobility, and Anglo American said hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would play a “significant role” in the mix of clean drivetrain technologies needed to effectively decarbonise transport.
But that has failed to come to pass, with hydrogen car sales a tiny fraction of electric car sales, and late last week the publication Hydrogen Insight report that Hype had now dumped its Paris-based hydrogen taxi fleet, and gone all electric instead.
The publication said Hype had blamed high hydrogen costs on a “form of oligopoly” by incumbent hydrogen producers and distributors TotalEnergies and Air Liquide.
“Hype said in a statement yesterday that prices of the ‘non-green’ hydrogen it buys to fuel its Parisian fuel cell-powered taxis have doubled since French oil giant TotalEnergies entered the H2mobility distribution market in 2021,” Hydrogen Insight reported.
According to its website, Hype had deployed more than 700 taxis in the Paris and surrounding areas – known as Ile-de-France, had installed 10 green hydrogen charging stations and had expanded to both Brussells in Belgium and Bordeaux in the south of France. It had planned to have 26 hydrogen charging stations in the Ile-de France by the end of 2026.
A month ago, it announced it had chosen Electra to provide the fast charging network for its push into battery electric vehicles and flagged it would be announcing its EV provider soon.
Michael Barnard, a contributor to The Driven’s sister site Renew Economy, writes on Cleantechnica that Hype benefited in its early years from a deal with Toyota that effectively provided free hydrogen fuel, and the turning point for the company came when the promotional agreements expired and EU subsidies began tapering off.
“By late 2024 and into early 2025, the stark economic realities of operating hydrogen taxis without subsidies became evident,” Barnard writes.
“Fuel prices surged sharply as Hype paid market prices for hydrogen for the first time. Concurrently, further European and French governmental financial support dried up, with agencies shifting their funding priorities toward more scalable and economically sustainable electric vehicle infrastructure.
“As Hype’s artificially favorable economic conditions disappeared, the company swiftly confronted massive operational deficits. Unable to sustain losses indefinitely, in June 2025, Hype suspended its hydrogen operations in Paris entirely, pivoting abruptly toward battery-electric vehicles as the only economically feasible alternative.”
Giles Parkinson is founder and editor of The Driven, and also edits and founded the Renew Economy and One Step Off The Grid web sites. He has been a journalist for nearly 40 years, is a former business and deputy editor of the Australian Financial Review, and owns a Tesla Model 3.